CHIP
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Converting to MAGI, What Does It Really Mean for Kids?
One of the more mystical sounding acronyms receiving a lot of attention in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is MAGI or Modified Adjusted Gross Income. MAGI is a way of defining income rooted in tax law and, along with the size of the tax filing unit (to determine household size), will be used to evaluate…
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GAO Looks At Access to Care for Children Covered by Medicaid & CHIP
By Wesley Prater The GAO recently released a report on access to care for children covered by Medicaid and CHIP. The researchers surveyed specialty care physicians and rural and urban area primary care physicians to examine Medicaid and CHIP enrolled children’s access to both primary and specialty care. The GAO report, required under CHIPRA, also looked…
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Some Good News in a Tough Year: Oregon’s Child Un-Insurance Rate Cut in Half
By Robin Christian, Children First for Oregon In this time of economic uncertainty and political division, last week brought us some welcome good news in Oregon. According to the Oregon Health Authority, the number of uninsured children has dropped dramatically in less than two years – from 11.3% to 5.6% – thanks to the affordable,…
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Setting the Record Straight: Medicaid Is Cost Effective
(Editor’s Note: This blog originally appeared as an op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune in response to statements made at the Senate Finance Committee field hearing on Medicaid held in Salt Lake City this week.) By Lincoln Nehring, Voices for Utah Children For nearly 50 years Medicaid has provided cost-effective, high-quality health coverage to Utah’s…
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KidsWell Campaign Launches Online Resource for Health Reform Implementation
By Kimberley Chin, Programme Executive, Atlantic Philanthropies State advocates face enormous challenges–shrinking resources, entrenched politics, an often disinterested press. Yet somehow, we manage to get it done.Just about every major federal policy initiative begins and ends at the state.It was the states that conceived of what became CHIP, launched the first health benefit exchanges with…
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Senator Rockefeller Writes Against Repeal of the Stability Protections
By Jocelyn Guyer Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) sent a letter to his colleague Senator Hatch (R-UT) last week outlining his grave concerns about Hatch’s recently introduced bill to repeal the stability protections (“or maintenance-of-effort requirement”) in Medicaid and CHIP. The letter — the latest in a series of Rockefeller efforts to protect health programs for low-income people…
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Gov Hickenlooper’s Veto of Premiums is Win for CO Kids and Families.
By Elisabeth Arenelas, Colorado Center on Law and Policy Thanks to Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper for his veto of a bill (Senate Bill 11-213) that would have required monthly premiums for certain children participating in Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+), Colorado’s version of the Child Health Insurance Plan. Coverage to this particular group was expanded…
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Keeping on Track: The California Health Benefit Exchange (HBEX) Continues to Move Along
By Kathleen Hamilton (The Children’s Partnership) Nicette Short (Children Now) on behalf of the 100% Campaign California’s Health Benefit Exchange – now commonly known as HBEX – continued to press on with its work in a fast-paced manner and held two meetings in May, with another to be held tomorrow. The HBEX Board demonstrated its…
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It Can Be Complicated to Be A Kid
By Martha Heberlein Health reform creates many new options for children and families to secure coverage; however, as more options become available, children may face more complex coverage arrangements. In fact, recent estimates suggest that 20 million children live in situations that may make accessing coverage challenging due to differing eligibility status within their families. As…
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Medicaid is the MVP of Children’s Health
By Jocelyn Guyer As I try to wrap my mind around the suggestion that CHIP’s success is a reason to convert Medicaid to a capped block grant, I wonder whether these guys have ever watched soccer or any team sport for that matter. Maybe I spent a little too much time on the soccer sidelines…
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A Win for Colorado Kids – Decrease in the Number of Uninsured
By Brittney Petersen, Colorado Community Health Network Amidst what is a fairly bleak time for states trying to expand coverage for kids, there is encouraging news that more kids are getting health coverage in Colorado. Two recent reports demonstrate a significant decline in the number of uninsured kids in Colorado between 2008 and 2009. The…
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Senate Majority Leader Shares his Views on Medicaid & CHIP
By Senator Harry Reid, Majority Leader Having grown up in a family that could not afford health care, I know how difficult it can be to go to a doctor when you need one. That’s one of the reasons I worked on health insurance reform. No person in the United States should go without care…
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CBO Says: Half of States Likely to Eliminate CHIP if MoE is Repealed
By Jocelyn Guyer On the eve of today’s mark up in the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, CBO released a more detailed cost estimate of H.R. 1683, the bill to repeal the Medicaid and CHIP stability protections (aka, “maintenace-of-effort requirements”). It highlights that the debate over the future of the stability protections is…
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You Can’t Manage What You Don’t Measure
By Joe Touschner We’ve all heard the observation that putting a Medicaid or CHIP card in a parent’s hand doesn’t necessarily mean that a child will get all the health care he or she needs–many of us have probably said it ourselves. For coverage to translate to care, kids and parents need access to the…
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Presumptive Eligibility Connects Kids (and Others) to Coverage
Over most of the two decades I’ve been working on children’s coverage, it was generally believed that sustaining an uninsurance rate among children of less than 5% was unlikely. Several states came close, hovering just above or below 5%, but still, the notion lingered. That is, until Massachusetts solidly broke the 5% barrier and can…
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Mississippi’s Interview Requirement Reduces Government Efficiency & Disconnects People from Coverage
By Wesley Prater Born and raised in Mississippi, I’ve always heard that Mississippians are “first in the worst” and “last in the best.” Unfortunately, Mississippi’s enrollment and renewal practices for children in Medicaid and CHIP put us in the running for worst in the government efficiency competition and reinforce those views about my home state. …
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Senator Hatch Launches Effort to Repeal MoE: Could Lead to Deep Cuts in CHIP
By Jocelyn Guyer Yesterday, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) introduced a bill to repeal the Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) stability protections or “maintenance-of-effort requirements.” In the House, the same legislation was introduced by Phil Gingrey (R-GA). Although Senator Hatch had warned for a long time this bill would be coming, it is still…
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Colorado Takes Step to Eliminate ‘Stair Step’
By Gretchen Hammer, Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved Some people say stair stepping is good for your health. Well, that may be true when you are exercising, but it is not true for families with children enrolled in public health insurance programs in Colorado. Currently, a Colorado family can have kids on two different…
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HHS Engages Communities to Address Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities
HHS’s National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities (a project of the Office of Minority Health) recently hosted a conference call announcing a new new initiative focused on reducing health disparities in the U.S. The National Stakeholder Strategy for Achieving Health Equity was developed after engaging communities across the country around the priorities and…
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CMS Continues to Invest in and Support Innovation and State Flexibility in Medicaid
Regardless of who pays for health care services, the U.S. health care system is in desperate need of dramatic change to make it the best it can be – affordable, sustainable and focused on outcomes – without leaving millions of Americans, mostly low-income or those with existing health conditions, uninsured. The good news is that…