CHIP
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New CHIP Protections are In Effect Now Despite Congressional Efforts to Eliminate Them
During the legislative process, most of the talk was about Medicaid cuts, but we highlighted that the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) would not be spared if the budget reconciliation bill (HR 1) placed a moratorium on all provisions of the Eligibility and Enrollment Rule (E&E rule) finalized in April 2024. Thankfully, due to likely…
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Medicaid, CHIP, and Affordable Care Act Marketplace Cuts and Other Health Provisions in the Budget Reconciliation Law, Explained
Editor’s Note: this brief was updated on August 13, 2025 to reflect additional Congressional Budget Office coverage estimates of the reconciliation law issued on August 11, 2025 In partnership with On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed the Congressional Republican budget reconciliation bill into law (H.R. 1 or P.L. 119-21 which was previously entitled the…
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New FAQs from CMS on School-Based Health Services
As a follow-up to requirements under the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that required the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to set up a technical assistance center and provide guidance to support the delivery of services to students covered by Medicaid and CHIP in school-based settings, CMS recently added 30 additional questions to…
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Congressional Budget Office Confirms Senate Republican Reconciliation Bill’s Medicaid Cuts Are More Draconian than the House-Passed Bill
In the late evening of Saturday, June 28th, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued preliminary estimates of the current version of the Senate Republican budget reconciliation bill now being debated on the Senate floor. The CBO estimates confirm that the Senate Republican reconciliation bill as it now stands would cut Medicaid to an even harsher…
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What Does the One Big Beautiful Bill Act Do to CHIP?
The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) has a long history of bipartisan support. But CHIP is not spared by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (HB 1). It’s quite possible bipartisan CHIP supporters were not aware of the impact the bill rammed through the House in the wee hours of night would have on children…
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Medicaid Matters for Young Children and Their Families
Medicaid, along with the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), covers more than 40% of the nation’s young children under age six, including three quarters (75%) of young, low-income children (below 200% of the federal poverty level).In seven states, Medicaid/CHIP covers at least half of children under age six (AL, AR, KY, LA, MS, NM, OK)…
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Black Maternal Health Week 2025: Healing Legacies: Strengthening Black Maternal Health Through Collective Action and Advocacy
The Black Mamas Matter Alliance (BMMA) founded Black Maternal Health Week, which is celebrated annually from April 11 to 17 during National Minority Health Month. Black Maternal Health Week amplifies the voices of Black mamas and brings awareness to Black-led maternal health and reproductive justice organizations that advocate for policy change and community-based solutions to…
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2025 Medicaid and CHIP Eligibility, Enrollment, and Renewal Policies Survey Released by KFF and CCF
During the unwinding of the COVID-related freeze on disenrollments in Medicaid, states were required to renew health insurance for all 94 million enrollees. The focus on Medicaid renewal processes during the unwinding revealed their complexity and inefficiencies in the system. With states facing an unprecedented volume of work and eligibility worker shortages, CMS provided new…
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Medicaid and CHIP Rules on Chopping Block
As my colleague Edwin Park has written, the House Budget Committee “menu” of Medicaid cuts includes rescinding regulations promulgated by the Biden Administration. Of particular interest to readers of SayAhhh!, the menu includes rescinding the Medicaid and CHIP eligibility and enrollment rule and the two companion rules on improving access to care in fee-for-service and…
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Medicaid Managed Care: Transparency for Young Children in 12 States
Regular Say Ahhh! readers know that most children covered by Medicaid in most states received their coverage through private insurance companies, or managed care organizations (MCOs). We believe that publicly-available data on Medicaid managed care performance is key to fully understanding how well Medicaid MCOs are working for children. Consistent, MCO-level data helps identify gaps…
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The Budget Resolution and Reconciliation Process Explained
In early 2021, we wrote about the basic rules for passing legislation in the House versus the Senate and how the budget reconciliation process allows certain legislation to move forward with approval from a simple majority of Senators rather than be subject to the filibuster and the usual three-fifths or 60-vote threshold. Given recent reports…
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Medicaid/CHIP Coverage in Alabama Congressional Districts, 2023
[Note: data reflect boundaries in effect for the 118th Congress. Districts in Alabama were redrawn for the 119th Congress but are not depicted below.]
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Webinar: Federal Medicaid Cuts & What’s at Stake for State Budgets and Families
The Georgetown University Center for Children and Families (CCF) held a special virtual session of our new Child Medicaid Policy Institute (CMPI) on Tuesday, December 17 at 2 pm ET. What: CMPI seeks to educate health advocates, providers, other stakeholders, and policymakers on the fundamentals of the Medicaid program and its importance for children, families, and…
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Are Children Receiving the Full Protection of Medicaid’s Pediatric Benefit Package?
Medicaid covers over 30 million children, or about 40 percent of all children. Medicaid covers disproportionately large shares of low-income children, children of color, and children with special health care needs. Medicaid law and policy necessarily impact children, oftentimes children who would be uninsured or underinsured without it. Children with Medicaid coverage are entitled to…
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Medicaid/CHIP Coverage by Congressional District, 2023
Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas…
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How Covering Adults Through Medicaid Expansion Helps Children
Opponents of Medicaid expansion often argue that enacting expansion will harm “traditional” Medicaid beneficiaries including children. This brief cites studies finding the opposite is true. Studies have documented multiple positive effects for children of expanding coverage for parents and other adults including higher child coverage rates, lower rates of infant mortality and higher birthweights, and…
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CMS Highlights EPSDT Policies and Strategies for Improving Care for Children with Behavioral Health Needs
As discussed in our blog series on the CMS’s new EPSDT guidance, the 57 page state health official letter lays out a number of policies and strategies to help states meet their EPSDT requirements under Medicaid – including care for children with behavioral health needs. As you may recall, in 2022, CMS released an informational…
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New EPSDT Guidance Reinforces Key Medicaid Prior Authorization Protections for Children – And We’d Like to See Even More
Everyone under the age of twenty-one in Medicaid should have access to health care services they need thanks to Medicaid’s Early and Periodic Diagnostic Screening and Treatment (EPSDT) requirement. In short, EPSDT requires children to get regular screenings and treatment when necessary. And this isn’t a vague hope – it’s the law. However, in at…
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CMS EPSDT Guidance Blog Series
CMS released a state health official (SHO) letter outlining the requirements states and managed care plans must meet under Medicaid’s pediatric benefit, known as Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment or EPSDT. The EPSDT SHO also describes some strategies and identifies best practices currently in use by states to meet the various requirements. This…
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Urban Institute Report on Parent Health Coverage Finds Mothers of Young Children Showed Greatest Gains
Last month, the Urban Institute released a report detailing uninsurance rates between 2019 and 2022 for families with young children (under age 3). The report revealed significant drops—for the children, for fathers, and most significantly, for mothers. There were multiple factors contributing to these rises in coverage rates—pandemic-era continuous enrollment policies such as the Families…
