Last November, Utah voters passed an initiative calling for Medicaid expansion. Since then, Utah policymakers have been fighting a convoluted battle against covering low-income adults that has been chronicled by my colleagues Joan Alker, Adam Searing, and Kelly Whitener. The latest chapter in this saga is Utah’s “per capita cap” waiver, which is now before […]
Like many others, I was out of Washington for the second half of August. That tends to be the period of time when Administrations publicly announce decisions they want buried. And when it comes to Medicaid waivers, the timing may not have been intentional, but what happened in August is worth unearthing to examine more […]
What a mess. After repealing the ballot initiative passed by a majority of Utah voters that offered more affordable health coverage through a simple Medicaid expansion, Utah’s Governor and legislature substituted a law that creates a very complex Medicaid plan aimed at only people with incomes under about $12,000 a year. As it turns out, […]
Those of us who follow Medicaid waiver activity around the country can feel that we’re being constantly assaulted by bad news. So here’s some good news to brighten your day: instead of proposing burdensome requirements that limit access to Medicaid enrollment and services, New Mexico is planning to improve its section 1115 waiver – known […]
CMS Administrator Seema Verma is visibly proud of her agency’s Medicaid and CHIP scorecard, which she claims has ushered in “a new era of accountability and transparency in Medicaid”. The scorecard includes measures of, among other things, federal administrative accountability; one of those measures reports the percentage of Section 1115 demonstration applications that CMS approved […]
Last week marked the 18-month anniversary of CMS guidance urging states to apply for Section 1115 Medicaid waivers to impose work reporting requirements as a condition of eligibility. One day after issuing the guidance (January 12, 2018) CMS approved the first state, Kentucky, to go forward with work reporting requirements along with numerous other harmful […]
