Future of Kids
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Child Enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP Down 600k Children in 2018
After CMS released October 2018 Medicaid and CHIP data, we reported that child enrollment was down by more than half a million children in the first 10 months of 2018. So needless to say, we were anxious to see the final November 2018 numbers, which were just released. In November 2018, child enrollment in Medicaid…
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It’s Time to Focus on the Future of Children’s Health Coverage
With the bad news that the nation’s uninsured rate for children went in the wrong direction for the first time in nearly a decade, it’s time for kid’s health to get back to the top of the agenda for policymakers. Here at CCF, we’re reinvigorating a project we started a few years ago that aims…
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New CCF Issue Brief on Strengthening Effective Medicaid Drug Rebate Program
Today, we issued our fifth issue brief in our Future of Children’s Health Coverage series. It focuses on how to build upon and improve the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program at both the federal and state levels in order to help state Medicaid programs better address their rising prescription drug costs. This, in turn, would ensure continued…
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How to Strengthen the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program to Address Rising Medicaid Prescription Drug Costs
Fifth in a series of briefs on the future of children’s health care coverage Introduction Prescription drugs are essential for the health of tens of millions of low-income children enrolled in Medicaid. They not only are part of routine pediatric care but also provide critical treatment and maintenance for chronic conditions such as asthma and…
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New Report Shows Progress on Children’s Health Coverage Reversed Course
[Editor’s Note: For the most recent Georgetown University Center for Children and Families report on children’s health coverage and an interactive version of the report with state-by-state data, click here.] For the past eight years, CCF has published a report tracking health coverage rates for children across the country. This year, for the first time…
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What Medicaid Can Do for Our Nation’s Youngest Children
The science is clear: We have a critical opportunity to reach young children during a period of rapid development, with the brain forming one million new neural connections every second. These earliest years are full of possibilities equally as powerful as the vulnerabilities that greatly influence children’s lifelong trajectories. Anyone who’s had the pleasure of chatting…
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Promoting Young Children’s Healthy Development in Medicaid and CHIP
Summary A child’s brain develops most rapidly in the earliest years of life, building the foundation for learning, behavior and health. Medicaid—as the primary source of health coverage for young, low-income children— is a logical system to reach families with young children and set them on a path of healthy physical, social, and emotional development.…
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New Census Data Reveal Troubling Signs for Children’s Health Coverage
Last week, the Census Bureau partially released the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) of the 2017 Current Population Survey (CPS) and the 2017 American Community Survey (ACS) health insurance data. In the past we have celebrated dramatic gains in health coverage for children as the share of uninsured children continued to decline. But this…
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Americans Love Families. American Policies Don’t.
New York Times By: Emily Badger and Claire Cain Miller Politicians are united in their love for families. The very word — “families” — was among those said most often by Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton in campaign speeches. Democrats and Republicans have platforms for middle-class families, working families, military families. And candidates in need…
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CMS Guidance Increases Urgency for Congress to Extend CHIP Funding
Last week, the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services (CMCS) released an informational bulletin with guidance for states in the event they exhaust remaining CHIP funds before Congress acts. This is just another sign of how perilously close we are to seeing children’s coverage disrupted. And even if Washington can be counted on to eventually…
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CHIP Funding Delays Risk Enrollment Freezes that would Reverse Success on Kid’s Health Coverage
Last week we released a new report on the consequences of delayed Congressional action on CHIP. Federal funding for CHIP expired 32 days ago, an unprecedented lapse in CHIP’s 20-year history. States are quickly running out of federal funding, with Arizona, Minnesota, and Oregon slated to exhaust federal funds before the end of December. If…
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Why Projecting When States Will Run Out of CHIP Funds is a Moving Target
This week we released a new report on the consequences of delayed Congressional action on the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Federal funding for CHIP expired 27 days ago, an unprecedented lapse in CHIP’s 20-year history. Some policymakers have reasoned that the situation is not urgent because all states have some unspent funds available from…
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What are the Consequences of Congressional Inaction on CHIP?
Funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) expired 26 days ago and Congress still hasn’t acted. I have been working on CHIP since its inception, and this is unprecedented! Today we are releasing a report that unpacks some of the implications of Congressional inaction beyond the beltway. We didn’t survey all 50 states but…
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Continued Congressional Inaction on CHIP Underscores Need for Change in Priorities
Last week, as has been widely reported, President Trump issued an Executive Order allowing short-term insurance plans to be offered for up to an entire year and the sale of association health plans. As my colleague, Sabrina Corlette, wrote in US News & World Report, “The executive order sets the stage for new health plans…
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What’s next for CHIP?
With both the House and Senate committees of jurisdiction reporting out CHIP bills last week, what needs to happen next to get CHIP done? Students of Schoolhouse Rock know that it’s very difficult for a bill to become a law – there are many steps that have to be taken. And while it’s a good…
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Graham-Cassidy Would Unravel Innovative and Smart Investments in Young Children
As we celebrate the good news of the highest health coverage levels on record for children, the latest ACA repeal effort in Congress once again threatens to destabilize the foundation of coverage for our nation’s children. We’ve written before about the ways that structural changes to Medicaid through block grants or caps will harm young…
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CHIP Benefit Standards Won’t Protect Consumers in Graham-Cassidy Plan
Listening to the sponsors of Graham-Cassidy suggests that coverage for low-income individuals will be based on CHIP benefit standards and, of course, everyone loves CHIP, right? In fact, the proposed legislation does NOT ensure that Marketplace and Medicaid expansion enrollees will get benefits that are equivalent to CHIP in a given state. Nor does it…
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Children Would Fall Through Cracks if Graham-Cassidy Becomes Law
There’s much ado in the news today about what the “Graham-Cassidy” plan does with respect to CHIP. Two impacts of Graham-Cassidy on CHIP are very clear. First, by cutting Medicaid, Graham-Cassidy would undermine the foundation upon which CHIP sits. Medicaid covers four times as many children as CHIP, so cutting Medicaid by imposing a per-capita…
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Hatch-Wyden Draft Bill to Extend CHIP Released
Although the renewed focus on Graham-Cassidy threatens to derail timely action on CHIP, a draft of bipartisan legislative language from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to extend CHIP has been released. In keeping with the positive signals that we’ve been hearing about, the draft bill known as…
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CHIP Programs Cannot Be Shut Down on a Moment’s Notice – Congress Needs to Make Decision on CHIP’s Future
Most CHIP directors I have known over the years are truly committed to the mission of covering children. They recognize the importance of coverage to children’s healthy development, along with the economic security and peace of mind it provides to families. So no doubt many CHIP directors are biting their nails over the fact that…
