All eyes— again! — have been on my home state of Arkansas this week as the General Assembly late yesterday passed the “private option,” aka the “Arkansas Plan,” or using Medicaid funds to buy exchange coverage for 250,000 uninsured Arkansans starting next year. This was no small feat, given the structural and political barriers at […]
So as Tricia Brooks blogged about yesterday while I was taking the day off, CMS issued some interesting Q and A’s last Friday on how a state might consider taking a premium assistance approach to expanding their Medicaid program. The Q and A’s, to my mind, were a helpful contribution to the ongoing discussions in […]
Just in time for the holiday weekend, CMS issued a Q&A regarding the state option to expand Medicaid by using premium assistance to buy coverage through a qualified health plan in the new insurance marketplaces. Over the past few weeks, “the Arkansas plan” worked itself into a media frenzy and had Medicaid stakeholders concerned over […]
Yesterday my new report for the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured was released called Premium Assistance in Medicaid and CHIP: An Overview of Current Options and Implications of the Affordable Care Act. The paper examines how statutory changes in the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act and the Affordable Care Act have changed […]
As my colleague Elisabeth Burak blogged about last month, Secretary Sebelius released a letter to Governors with answers to 39 frequently asked questions related to ACA implementation on December 10th. Most notably, the FAQ addressed whether or not CMS would allow waivers for “partial expansions” now that the Supreme Court has rendered the expansion of […]
A question on the minds of waiver watchers these days is whether the Obama Administration can, will, or should allow states to do a partial expansion of Medicaid to 100% of FPL for childless adults and parents who are newly eligible under the Affordable Care Act. Remember, Section 1115 demonstration waiver authority was created to […]
