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Financing

  • CMS Helps Florida Out with Short-Term Fix – Florida Should Accept Medicaid Option for Long-Term Solution

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    By Greg Mellowe, Florida CHAIN The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced its approval of a three-year extension of Florida’s Statewide Medicaid Managed Care program, but only a one-year extension of the Low Income Pool (LIP). The LIP provides the state with additional federal Medicaid funding that hospitals can use to…

  • Ryan Budget Again Proposes Medicaid Block Grant – Threatens to Add Millions to Ranks of Uninsured & Underinsured

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    By Edwin Park, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s new budget again proposes to radically restructure Medicaid by converting it into a block grant, and it would cut federal Medicaid funding steeply, by $732 billion over the next decade.  It would also repeal health reform’s Medicaid expansion.  The combined…

  • President Obama’s Budget Proposes Permanent Extension of Express Lane Eligibility

    CCFadmin

    By Tara Mancini This week, the Administration reinforced its support for Express Lane Eligibility by including its permanent extension in the proposed FY 2015 budget. As many Say Ahhh! readers know, without further authorization, this effective enrollment strategy is set to expire at the end of September. Other notable extensions in Medicaid and CHIP include:…

  • FMAP Guidance on 12-Month Continuous Eligibility for Adults

    CCFadmin

    By Martha Heberlein Way back in May, CMS put out guidance on five strategies designed to make it easier for Medicaid-eligible folks to connect to coverage. You’ve probably heard that several of these have been incredibly successful, including in Arkansas and California. And while 35 states have picked up one or more of the five,…

  • History Rebuts Claim that Federal Medicaid Matching Rates Are Unstable

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    By Edwin Park, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities As I explained last week, there’s no evidence to support claims that the federal government will renege on its commitment to finance nearly all of the costs of health reform’s Medicaid expansion.  Some critics also assert that Congress frequently changes the formula that determines what share of states’…

  • The Federal Financial Commitment to Medicaid Expansion Stands

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    By Edwin Park, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Health reform’s Medicaid expansion is a great deal for states.  The federal government will finance nearly all of its costs, picking up 100 percent of expansion costs for the first three years (2014-2016) and no less than 90 percent on a permanent basis.  In fact, as a recent…

  • CBPP Finds New Plan to Repeal ACA Would Lead to Deep Cuts for Medicaid Beneficiaries, Higher Costs and Fewer Consumer Protections

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    By Edwin Park, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) unveiled a new plan to repeal all of health reform (the Affordable Care Act or ACA) except for certain provisions related to Medicare, cap federal Medicaid funding, and create a new tax credit for people…

  • Budget Deal Kicks “Medicaid Extenders” Down the Road, Adds DSH Delay

    Elisabeth Wright Burak

    Earlier I wrote about progress in the Senate on the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) repeal, or “doc fix,” which passed the Finance committee with the Medicaid extenders intact.  Since time was running out for the House and Senate to agree on the exact terms for a permanent SGR fix, the Murray-Ryan budget agreement on…

  • States Moving Ahead with Medicaid Expansion Expect Lower State Medicaid Spending in FY 2014

    CCFadmin

    By Tara Mancini Earlier this week, the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured released their 13th annual Medicaid budget survey.  The survey found that the average growth in total Medicaid spending and enrollment remained relatively low. However, spending and enrollment will increase across the board in FY 2014 as a result of the welcome…

  • Arkansas Medicaid is Containing Costs Effectively so Why Go Private?

    Joan Alker

    Just saw an interesting press release from Arkansas Medicaid agency on July 12th which says that “Arkansas Medicaid finished State Fiscal Year 2013 just 1.5 percent over the previous year’s spending, marking the program’s lowest annual growth rate in more than three decades.” Thanks to Dylan Scott’s article in Governing Magazine for calling this to…

  • Now About the FMAP for Those Expansion States…

    CCFadmin

    By Martha Heberlein Back in early April, CMS released the final rule on FMAP claiming under the the Affordable Care Act. As covered in a previous blog by my colleague, Jocelyn Guyer, the rule describes the new threshold method that states will use to claim the appropriate matching funds for newly-eligible adults. It also provides more…

  • Medicaid Payment Provision Seeks to Address Access

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    By Anne Edwards, M.D., FAAP, Chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on State Government Affairs Pediatricians and other child advocates continue to work with their state Medicaid programs to implement a significant provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) to increase access to care in the program.  Long sought by the…

  • HHS Release Its FMAP Claiming Regulation

    CCFadmin

    By Jocelyn Guyer On April 2nd, 2013, HHS released the “final” version (more on that below) of its FMAP claiming rule. It outlines the process states must use to figure out the matching rate that applies to adults who are covered by the expansion of Medicaid to 138 percent of the federal poverty line.   This…

  • The New Year Brings Positive News: Medicaid Spending and Enrollment Growth Declined in 2011

    CCFadmin

    By Tara Mancini Earlier this month, the Office of the Actuary at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid released its annual data on national health expenditures, finding that growth remained constant for a third consecutive year. Medicaid spending growth slowed, in contrast to spending by Medicare, private health insurers, and consumers’ out-of-pocket, all of which…

  • The Wait is Over: HHS Clarifies Terms of the Medicaid Expansion, Approves Six State Exchanges

    Elisabeth Wright Burak

    This afternoon, Secretary Sebelius sent a letter to governors along with a list of answers to 39 Frequently Asked Questions related to the Medicaid expansion, exchanges and market reforms.  As Joan Alker has posted before, we’ve been waiting patiently for the Medicaid expansion terms.   As we learn more, our bloggers will have more to say…

  • Updated State-by-State Numbers Show that ACA’s Medicaid Extension is STILL a Good Deal for States

    CCFadmin

    By Martha Heberlein Earlier this week, the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured and the Urban Institute released updated estimates of the cost and coverage implications of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid extension. These numbers are particularly helpful as states weigh whether or not to extend Medicaid to low-income adults. The big picture – if…

  • Kaiser Survey Finds Medicaid Spending Growth is Down

    CCFadmin

    By Tara Mancini Last week’s release of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s 50-State Medicaid Budget Survey for State Fiscal Years 2012 and 2013 brings encouraging news.  The big picture findings from this 12th annual survey indicate that growth in both total Medicaid spending and enrollment were down in 2012.  Medicaid enrollment is projected to grow at…

  • Report Sheds Light on Block Grants

    Karina Wagnerman

    We’ve heard a lot about how block-granting Medicaid will allow states more flexibility but we haven’t heard much about the potential impact such a proposal might have on low-income families.  The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities recently issued a report that sheds light on that issue. CBPP’s report, “How States Have Spent Federal and…

  • More Interesting Tidbits from the CBO ACA Score

    CCFadmin

    By Martha Heberlein Our blog post from last week gave the high-level numbers of CBO’s updated score on the ACA, but we wanted to pass along a few more nuggets. If a state fails to extend Medicaid to low-income uninsured adults, it will increase the cost of covering Exchange participants. In states that elect to…

  • Medicaid Controls Health Care Costs Better than Other Insurers

    CCFadmin

    By Tara Mancini Since 2008, we’ve heard reports about growing Medicaid enrollment and consequently, a rise in its cost (which was mainly incurred by the federal government). Of course we now know that the increases in Medicaid enrollment, and subsequently Medicaid spending, coincided with the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. And by now, Say…