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  • Kaiser Study: Employer Coverage Remains Steady, But Long Term Trends Highlight Need To Strengthen All Forms Of Coverage

    CCFadmin

    By Sean Miskell Despite concerns that the Affordable Care Act’s reforms would undermine employer –sponsored health insurance, a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that employer coverage remains steady and premiums have increased only modestly. While this is welcome news, long-term trends that show decreasing employer coverage – and increasing costs for those…

  • School-Aged Children Benefit from ACA “Stairstep” Provision

    Elisabeth Wright Burak

    One piece of the ACA that has received less attention than others (outside CCF at least!) is the requirement for states to align eligibility for all children under 19, also referred to as the elimination of “stairstep” eligibility for kids. A recent USA Today article focused new attention on this provision. Under the ACA states…

  • States Putting In Place Delayed Medicaid Expansions Must Make Good Faith Effort to Ensure Nobody is Left Behind

    Adam Searing

    Federal approval last month of Pennsylvania’s new plan to expand Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on January 1, 2015 has brought urgency to this obscure but important issue. States that decide to expand Medicaid where the date of expansion occurs after the original January 1, 2014 ACA Medicaid and health marketplace start…

  • Advocates File Civil Rights Complaint with HHS on Coverage Termination Day

    Sonya Schwartz

    Yesterday, on the day that 115,000 people who bought coverage in the federal marketplace lost coverage, the National Immigration Law Center filed two formal administrative complaints with HHS’s Office for Civil Rights alleging that the federally facilitated violated longstanding federal civil rights law and the Affordable Care Act’s anti-discrimination provisions. They request that OCR immediately…

  • Taking Stock and Taking Steps to Improve Consumer Assistance

    Tricia Brooks

    A new report released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Kaiser Family Foundation chronicles the challenges, innovations and lessons learned about the needs of consumers for assistance in accessing and using health coverage options under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The report is compilation of feedback from the field, including a survey of…

  • Plan Cancellations Redux: Finally, An End to Pre-Existing Condition Discrimination?

    Sabrina Corlette

    The Navigator was scratching his head. The Affordable Care Act had banned insurance companies from discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions. How was it possible that his new client had a letter from his insurer, refusing to cover care for his HIV? The Navigator reached out to CHIR experts for answers, which we’re able to…

  • Uninsured Children More Likely to Face Access and Affordability Barriers, Less Likely to Receive Preventive Care

    Joan Alker

    Did you know that uninsured children are nearly 27 percentage points less likely than insured children to have received a routine checkup in the last year? That was one of the findings in a report CCF released with the Urban Institute earlier this month. Now most Say Ahhh! readers won’t find that statistic all that surprising…

  • Overview of Immigrant Eligibility Policies for Health Insurance Affordability Programs

    CCFadmin

    The Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, in partnership with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and the National Immigration Law Center Presented in a Series of Assister Webinars Focusing on Coverage Eligibility and Application Process for Families that Include Immigrants sponsored by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Webinar 1: September…

  • Uninsured Rate for Young Adults Declines

    CCFadmin

    By Sophia Duong When the ACA was signed into law, I was still in college, sitting in the basement of the student union half working on a group project, and half following the news. My friends and I were ecstatic to be a part of this momentous time in history. As young adults on the…

  • Early Evidence that ACA Improves Coverage of Hispanics

    Sonya Schwartz

    The CDC survey data released earlier this week provides hope that the ACA can improve coverage rates for Hispanics, a group with persistently high rates of uninsurance.  In the first three months of 2014, the percentage of uninsured Hispanics decreased from 30.3% to 27.2%.  This is particularly hopeful because we know that many more people…

  • Health Insurance Rates Remain Steady Among Children, According to ACS

    Alisa Chester

    For background information regarding the 2013 American Community Survey, please review our blog Data Debrief: Overview of the ACS and CPS. On Thursday, the US Census Bureau released 2013 American Community Survey data. In accordance with the CPS, as well as recent federal and private surveys, children’s health insurance rates remained steady last year. According…

  • What the CPS Says About Our Children’s Well-being

    Alisa Chester

    What the CPS Says About Our Children’s Well-being  For background information regarding the 2013 Current Population Survey, please review our blog Data Debrief: Overview of the ACS and CPS. On Tuesday, the US Census Bureau published Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2013, which details the results of the Current Population Survey Annual Social…

  • CDC Survey Finds Uninsured Rate Drops for Adults, Remains Steady for Kids

    Joan Alker

    In the rapidly changing health coverage landscape, getting an accurate snapshot of what’s happening to uninsured rates is a bit like trying to get a good photo of your new puppy sitting and smiling for the camera.  Today, we got one of the most rigorous  and timely snapshots that we can possibly get from a…

  • Medicaid Matters For Children: Alabama’s Investment in Extending the Medicaid Payment Increase

    Guest

    By Dr. Marsha Raulerson, Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics Across the country, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) provide health coverage to more than 43 million children, including half of all low-income children in the United States. This summer, I cared for one of those children.  In August, a 17 year old…

  • We Can Fix This, People! More than Half of Uninsured Parents Are Hispanic

    Sonya Schwartz

    New data zeroes in on a subgroup of uninsured adults not always studied: uninsured parents. An Urban Institute report released yesterday found that more than half (57 percent) of uninsured parents surveyed in March/June 2014 were Hispanic and more than one-third (38.4 percent) said their primary language was Spanish. While I know this does not…

  • A First Look at How the Affordable Care Act is Affecting Coverage among Parents and Children

    Guest

    Editor’s Note: This blog originally appeared on the Health Affairs blog. By Joan Alker, Georgetown CCF and Genevieve M. Kenney, Urban Institute Following the implementation of the major coverage provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2014, the question arises: “How is the health law affecting uninsured children and their families?” Today, the Urban…

  • A First Look at Uninsured Rate for Children Since Major Affordable Care Act Provisions Took Effect

    Joan Alker

    Georgetown University CCF researchers teamed up with researchers at the Urban Institute to take a first look at how the Affordable Care Act is impacting the uninsured rate for children. The high level data indicate that, so far, there has been no detectable change nationally, although children’s uninsured rates remained at historically low levels. The…

  • Looking Under the ACA Hood to Check on How Uninsured Children are Doing

    Tricia Brooks

    Recently, CCF teamed up with the researchers at the Urban Institute to take a first look at how the Affordable Care Act is impacting the rate of uninsured children. The high level data indicates that, so far, there has been no detectable change nationally, although children’s uninsured rates remains at historically low levels. But state…

  • Do Nothing to Renew or Get an Updated Eligibility Determination? CMS Puts out Final Marketplace Renewal Rules

    Tricia Brooks

    CMS has adopted the proposed rules for QHP renewal and redetermination of premium tax credits published with very few changes. As I wrote in this blog, the good news is that the final rules provide an opportunity for consumers to be automatically re-enrolled in the same or a similar plan without taking action. The downside…

  • Spread the Word: Deadline One Week Away for Immigrant Communities Needing to Verify Marketplace Eligibility

    Sonya Schwartz

    Immigrant communities face a critical deadline on Friday, September 5: submit additional documentation to verify their citizenship or immigration status, or potentially lose health coverage through the marketplace at the end of September. Yesterday we helped sponsor a press briefing primarily for ethnic media to help spread the word and educate immigrant communities about the…