CHIP
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CCF Comments to NAIC on Exchange Coordination with Medicaid and CHIP
CCF Comments to NAIC on Exchange Coordination with Medicaid and CHIP
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Governors Make the Case for Help with FMAP
This last weekend, the nation’s Governors came together for their annual meeting in Boston where the main topic of conversation was the economic crisis that continues to cripple state budgets. One of the key policies many of the Governors made a pitch for was an extension of fiscal relief for strapped states through the extension of…
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Many Children Lose Insurance When Parents Lose Jobs
By Jocelyn Guyer Dr. Fairbrother and her colleagues at Cincinnati Children’s hospital have just come out with an excellent new study that takes a clear-eyed look at how often children end up losing health coverage after a parent loses a job. The results are powerful, but not pretty — between 2000 and 2004, almost one…
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CHIP Tips: New Federal Funding Available to Cover Immigrant Children and Women
The recently enacted CHIP reauthorization law includes a number of programmatic and financing changes that affect both Medicaid and CHIP. One of these changes is a new option, often referred to as “ICHIA,” that allows states to receive federal funds for providing Medicaid and CHIP coverage to lawfully residing immigrant children and pregnant women regardless…
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CMS Issues Long-Awaited CHIPRA Guidance
Yesterday, CMS issued two additional guidance letters related to implementation of the Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA) of 2009. The first of these letters is on new federal support for covering for lawfully residing children and pregnant women who have been in the country less than five years. This long-awaited guidance explains that there…
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HealthCare.gov: Not Quite Amazon Yet but an Impressive Start
Today, HHS launched a web portal designed to provide families with a central place to go for information on health care coverage in their state. The folks at HHS must have been burning the midnight oil to get this done by the July 1st deadline created by Congress. Healthcare.gov is a remarkable accomplishment in such a…
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Congress Gives States Little to Celebrate at the Fiscal New Year
By Joe Touschner When I served as an aide in the Ohio Legislature, an annual tradition was the Rockin’ Fiscal New Year’s Eve Party, held on June 30th as a way for staffers to mark the end of the state’s fiscal year (and every other year, the end of a grueling budget process). With or…
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Web Portal to Be Launched This Week
” Beam me up Scotty!” – Captain Kirk Okay Trekkies, I realize Captain Kirk didn’t utter those exact words but it is the phrase that comes to mind whenever I hear the word “web portal“ bandied about. The new health care reform web portal (you’ll be able to find it at healthcare.gov), slated for launch on…
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Patients’ Bill of Rights Offers Important Protections for Children with Special Health Needs
Today President Obama held a press conference about a number of new regulations being issued by his Administration that he says constitute a new “Patients’ Bill of Rights”. Many of these new regulations have important ramifications for children who receive coverage through the private market and in particular, children with special health care needs. In…
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Getting it Right: State Policymakers Identify 10 Steps to Successful Implementation of Federal Health Reform
The National Academy of State Health Policy (NASHP) is an independent academy of state health policymakers working together to identify emerging issues, develop policy solutions, and improve state health policy and practice. Recently, its executive committee identified ten aspects of health reform that states must get right in order to successfully implement federal health reform.…
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Alaska Legislature Says “Yes” to Covering More Children; Governor Says “No”
Late this spring, the Alaska legislature overwhelmingly passed an expansion of Denali KidCare (Alaska’s CHIP program), from 175% to 200% of the FPL, a policy that Governor Parnell had indicated support for earlier this year, but switched directions on last week. Currently, Alaska is one of only three states that still doesn’t cover children at…
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Health Reform Eases Prohibition of Enrolling State Employee Kids in CHIP
I’m all for light meals but the smorgasbord offered by the health reform law is something we need to make reform meaningful and to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health care. Whether you go straight to the entrees (the Medicaid expansion or subsidized coverage through exchanges) or nibble on the appetizers (no…
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Arizona Takes First Step to Restore Children’s Health Insurance
By Matt Jewett, Children’s Action Alliance of Arizona Not a lot of good news has come out of Arizona this year. Amidst leading the country in job losses, selling our state Capitol to raise money (we’re leasing it back), and a divisive immigration debate gaining national attention, we also became the first state ever to…
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Covering Kids & Families Coalitions Know Important Lessons for Health Reform
In 1997, just months before Congress enacted the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) announced a national grant program called “Covering Kids.” The concept was to overcome hurdles to Medicaid enrollment and retention through outreach, policy and procedural simplifications and coordination of coverage between programs. With the creation of CHIP,…
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Congressional Leaders Urge HHS to Issue Strong MOE Guidance
It was a great victory for children and families when Congress included a maintenance of effort (MOE) requirement in health reform so states wouldn’t cutback on Medicaid and CHIP coverage before affordable coverage was available through the state Exchanges. Now, as with so many issues in health care reform, the way it works out for…
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States Find New Electronic Data Match Effective and Efficient in Confirming Citizenship
One of the exciting new options provided by the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA) is the ability of states to use an existing electronic data exchange with the Social Security Administration (SSA) to document citizenship. All states have entered into agreements with the SSA to use this new capability starting January 1, 2010.…
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How Much Will This Cost Us? Key Questions to Ask About State Estimates on Health Reform Costs
By Martha Heberlein Throughout the debate on health reform, states have asked, “how much will this cost us?” Now that health reform is the law of the land, several have put out their own estimates. However, as there is no agreed upon independent arbiter to tell us what states will be spending – sadly, CBO…
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Listening to the Mann: For Federal Medicaid Director, 2014 Starts Now
By David Blatt, Director, Oklahoma Policy Institute This week I had the pleasure of attending a gathering of policy analysts and advocates from 15 states on “Transforming Health Care Coverage for Children and Families,” convened by Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. The conference, which focused on the opportunities and challenges of providing coverage…
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VA Families Can Breathe Easier as FAMIS Cuts Were Averted
By John McInerney, Health Policy Director, The Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis Families in Virginia can breathe a bit easier these days, as efforts by Governor Bob McDonnell and the House of Delegates to tighten eligibility in the states’ CHIP program have failed. Virginia’s program is called Family Access to Medical Insurance Security (FAMIS), and it…
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It Happened One Night
By Donna Cohen Ross, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities All in one night — February 11 — 10,484 eligible children were enrolled into Louisiana’s Medicaid program. Are you trying to imagine this? If so, you’re probably picturing mile-long lines of children winding through Baton Rouge, parents in tow, clutching packets of forms and documents. …