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CHIP

  • Covering All Kids

    Kelly Whitener

    Ninth in a series of papers from the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families on the future of children’s health coverage. Introduction The nation made remarkable progress in reducing the rate of uninsured children, following decades of coverage expansions and policy changes that made it easier for children and their families to get and…

  • Medicaid Work Requirements and Beyond: CMS Administrator Tries a New Work-Around

    Andy Schneider

    For the past 3 years, CMS Administrator Seema Verma has been on a crusade to convert Medicaid from health insurance to a welfare program.  The spear at the point of this attack has been work requirements, which, under the guise of “demonstrations,” she has sought to impose as a condition of eligibility for Medicaid coverage. …

  • Statement by Joan Alker on Medicaid Block Grant/Per Capita Cap Guidance

    Cathy Hope

    Following is a statement by Georgetown University Center for Children and Families Executive Director Joan Alker regarding the Trump Administration’s Medicaid block grant/per capita cap guidance announcement: “The misguided, unlawful guidance issued by CMS today encourages states to gamble with the health and well-being of their residents and their budgets by trading in their guarantee…

  • CCF Submits Comments on Harmful Trump Administration Medicaid Financing and Supplemental Payment Rule

    Edwin Park

    CCF has submitted public comments to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed “Fiscal Accountability” rule which could significantly change how states finance their share of the cost of Medicaid programs and how states provide supplemental payments to hospitals, nursing homes, physicians and other health care providers. As my recent Health Affairs blog…

  • Fact Checking CMS Administrator’s Claim on Outreach and Enrollment Efforts for Kids

    Kelly Whitener

    In a recent interview on the PBS News Hour, Kaiser Health News reporter Sarah Varney asked CMS Administrator Seema Verma about steps the administration is taking to address the troubling increase in the number of uninsured children and its connection to the decrease in child enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP. Readers of SayAhhh! are already…

  • The New Year Brings Good News to Uninsured Idahoans; Providers are Ready to Go

    Joan Alker

    With all of the challenges facing the health care world these days, I decided to write my first blog of 2020 about some good news happening in Idaho. As of January 1st, over 50,000 Idahoans were enrolled in Medicaid expansion coverage finally bringing to fruition the ballot initiative passed handily by voters in November 2018.…

  • How Medicaid Expansion Improved the Life of Idaho Mother Raising Two Children with Disabilities on Her Own

    Guest

    [Editor’s Note: Anita Sackuvich, a single mother with two disabled children who has been living without health insurance, joined Close the Gap Idaho at a press conference on January 6, 2020 to share her excitement about enrolling in coverage through Idaho’s Medicaid expansion. After facing mounting medical debt from a lifesaving surgery, Anita finally has health…

  • South Carolina Becomes First State to Impose Harmful Work Requirements Primarily on Poor Parents

    Joan Alker

    I had held out a little sliver of hope that the Trump Administration would not cross this line but today those hopes were extinguished when CMS Administrator Verma traveled to South Carolina to personally deliver the news to South Carolina Governor McMaster that his state would be the first in the nation to apply a…

  • Early Childhood Investments Less Effective if Young Children Remain Uninsured

    Elisabeth Wright Burak

    Today, we are releasing a companion report to our annual 50-state look at uninsured children with a focus on young children under age 6. Unfortunately, the U-turn we’ve seen in health coverage for children of all ages also extends to the nation’s infants, toddlers, and preschool-aged children. After a decade-plus of downward progress, since 2016…

  • MAGI Application Processing Time Report Shows Modest Improvement in 2019

    Tricia Brooks

    States are required to routinely report to CMS a number of performance indicators but few have been published to date. The most current and frequent data that are available publicly include application volume by source, determinations by program, and both Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) point-in-time enrollment (which CCF tracks and reports on…

  • Nation’s Youngest Children Lose Health Coverage at an Alarming Rate

    Elisabeth Wright Burak

    Introduction Until recently, the U.S. has experienced a consistent, annual decline in the number and rate of uninsured children in most states.[note]J. Alker and L. Roygardner, “The Number of Uninsured Children is on the Rise” (Washington: Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, October 2019), available at https://ccf.georgetown.edu/wp- content/uploads/2019/10/Uninsured-Kids-Report.pdf.[/note] Beginning in 2016, however, the trend…

  • Latest CMS Data Show Slight Improvement in Decline in Child Enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP

    Tricia Brooks

    Based on the recent release of final August 2019 enrollment data by CMS, the decline in child enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP improved ever so slightly from a 3 percent decline in the 18-month trend from December 2017 to June 2019 to a 2.9 percent decline over the 20-month period through August 2019. At the…

  • Groundwork Ohio Seeks to Improve Managed Care Procurement to Advance a Vision for Young Children

    CCFadmin

    When Governor DeWine took office in January of 2019, we began to see the platforms he campaigned upon, including his Opportunity for Every Ohio Kid agenda, begin to take form as his administration settled in and our state FY20-21 budget deliberations ensued in March. Among the new administration’s varied priorities, immediate attention was placed on…

  • Medicaid Expansion Connects 25,000 More Virginia Kids and 110,000 Parents with Affordable Health Coverage

    Adam Searing

    In just ten months, Medicaid expansion has helped Virginia connect over 340,000 adults to health coverage – including about 110,000 parents. Because of the well-known Medicaid “welcome mat” effect, so far about 25,000 Virginia children came in the door to coverage along with their parents. Most of these children were likely eligible for Medicaid or…

  • Medicaid Critics Misconstrue Payment Error Rate Measurement to Undermine Popular Program

    Kelly Whitener

    The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) recently released new numbers on estimated improper payment rates in Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP. It will take some time to fully digest the 300+ page financial report and its findings, but in the meantime, it may be worth a quick refresher on the Payment Error Rate Measurement (PERM)…

  • The CMS Administrator Talks to Medicaid Directors About Humility in Government

    Andy Schneider

    Two years ago, CMS Administrator Seema Verma gave a major policy address to the  National Association of Medicaid Directors (NAMD) at which she outlined her agenda for Medicaid.  She invoked Hubert Humphrey and Lyndon Johnson on the moral imperative of meeting the needs of the poor.  She promised to give states more flexibility by, among other…

  • Renewing Bipartisan Commitment to Help Uninsured Children Should be Top Priority

    Joan Alker

    Today we released our ninth annual report that tracks children’s health insurance coverage at the state and national level. This report looks at two-year trends from 2016 to 2018 analyzing American Community Survey data from the Census Bureau. We believe this is the first national report to look at this two-year time period, a time…

  • The Number of Uninsured Children is on the Rise

    Joan Alker

    [Editor’s Note: For the most recent report on children’s health coverage, click here.] Introduction For many years, the nation has been on a positive trajectory reducing the number and rate of uninsured children. Having health insurance is important for children as they are more likely to receive needed services, have better educational outcomes, and their…

  • Improving State Administration and Procedures to Regain Medicaid/CHIP Enrollment Momentum for Kids

    Tricia Brooks

    See our full blog series on evidence-based policies available to policymakers to prevent more eligible children from losing health coverage. As Say Ahhh! readers know, in May, we released a comprehensive report showing that child enrollment dropped by nearly 1 million children in 38 states in 2018 and have continued to track the growing enrollment…

  • Maximizing the Use of Technology to Regain Enrollment Momentum in Medicaid

    Tricia Brooks

    See our full blog series on evidence-based policies available to policymakers to prevent more eligible children from losing health coverage. As Say Ahhh! readers know, in May, we released a comprehensive report showing that child enrollment dropped by nearly 1 million children in 38 states in 2018 and we have continued to track the growing…