Marketplace
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Many Southern States Miss Opportunity to Address Health Disparities
By Tara Mancini A new report from the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured (KCMU) indicates that a little more than half (53%) of uninsured people of color have family income at or below 138% and therefore should qualify for Medicaid in 2014 as the ACA originally intended. Yet, almost a third (30%) of…
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CCF Partners with Urban Institute and Packard on New Health Reform Survey
By Martha Heberlein Today, Health Affairs released a paper detailing a new (and in our opinion a very exciting!) survey – the Health Reform Monitoring Survey (HRMS) – designed by the Urban Institute. This internet-based survey is intended to provide rapid-cycle feedback on changes under the ACA. The goal is to replicate key outcome measures…
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Pennsylvania’s Medicaid Waiver Proposal Does Not Impress
Last Friday, Governor Corbett’s Administration released it’s Section 1115 waiver application draft. This initiates the process for the required 30-day state comment period that must precede the submission of the waiver request to the federal government. The state will be holding a series of public hearings and webinars with the final hearing in Harrisburg…
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Patience and Flexibility Needed as Those with New Insurance Start Using Health Care Services After January 1
Now that healthcare.gov is working much better and enrollment numbers are rising, it is a good time to think about being prepared for the January 1 launch of new coverage. Beyond counting enrollment, the media are already focused on what will happen to those who sign up for insurance effective on January 1. If Sophie…
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Senate Finance Committee to Consider Medicaid and CHIP Extensions
Today, the Senate Finance Committee released a draft summary and description of the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) repeal, or “doc fix,” bill that committee will take up Thursday morning. While the Medicare “doc fix,” a move to permanently change the way Medicare pays providers, is the committee’s featured event, the Chairman’s Mark also seeks…
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Iowa Medicaid Expansion Waiver Approved!
Just in time for Christmas, and more importantly in time to get the program up and running by January 1st, federal CMS has granted Iowa’s request for two Section 1115 waivers to allow the state to pursue its own version of Medicaid expansion. This is good news for the more than 100,000 Iowans who stand…
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Translating Eligibility and Enrollment Lingo
My colleagues just released a helpful update on state progress in creating more consumer-friendly eligibility and enrollment systems. If you’re like me, when reading Medicaid eligibility terms like “MAGI conversion” and “flat file,” your mind wanders to a foreign money exchange or even a children’s book character—yes, the omnipresent Flat Stanley—rather than focusing on people…
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Another Reason to Be Thankful: Sixteen States to Eliminate CHIP Waiting Periods
While we’re still celebrating our nation’s continued success in improving coverage for children, there’s another reason to be thankful. As news has trickled in over the past few months about states eliminating their CHIP waiting periods, CCF teamed up with MACPAC staff to take stock of where things stand. And the good news is that…
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National League of Cities Awards 12 Cities Planning Grants for Health Benefit Outreach Campaign
By Wesley Prater As part of the NLC’s Cities Expanding Health Care Access for Children and Families Initiative, funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies, 12 cities recently were awarded planning grants up to $30,000 to develop citywide outreach campaigns, focused on enrolling eligible children and families in Medicaid and CHIP. During a six-month planning period, the…
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Handling Premiums with Care in Medicaid, CHIP and the Marketplace
In my former life as a CHIP director, I came to appreciate how tough it is for low-income families to make ends meet. In the hierarchy of needs, I think we all agree that paying the rent and utilities, putting food on the table, and making sure you can show up for work by having…
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Extending Medicaid: Good for Parents, Great For Kids! Here’s Why
One of the best state approaches for covering the remaining low-income uninsured children is to put out the welcome mat for the whole family by extending Medicaid coverage for parents. While most low-income kids are currently eligible for Medicaid and CHIP, they continue to be disproportionately uninsured: in 2012, they were 45.1 percent of the…
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State Decisions on Health Insurance Policy Cancellations Fix
Under the Administration’s transitional policy fix for people whose health insurance plans were canceled, states and insurers are encouraged, but not required, to allow people to re-enroll in and even renew these plans. This means that health plans that exist today, but do not comply with the Affordable Care Act’s new protections set to go into effect…
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One Step Closer to the Basic Health Program
While many of us have our focus on health coverage that begins on January 1, 2014, I am also keeping my eye on a new option for states to provide more affordable coverage to low-income parents and other adults that starts on January 1, 2015. Right before Thanksgiving, we filed comments on the Basic Health…
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New Resource for Assisters Covers Private Insurance and Market Plans
Almost two months into open enrollment for the new Health Insurance Marketplaces, it is clear consumer assistance is essential to helping people understand their coverage options. Fortunately, the ACA anticipated this need by requiring the marketplaces to have Navigators who will help consumers compare options and enroll in coverage. The Administration and states are also…
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Asian Pacific Islander American Health Forum Joins CCF to Champion Children’s Coverage
By Priscilla Huang, Asian Pacific Islander American Health Forum I had the opportunity to join health policy experts from Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities for a panel discussion today hosted by New American Media, discussing encouraging findings in CCF’s latest report on the status of…
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Ready, Set to Enroll? Medicaid Eligibility and Enrollment on the Cusp of 2014
By Martha Heberlein and Tricia Brooks Of late, most of the media attention on ACA implementation has focused on the technical glitches in the federal (and to a lesser extent state) marketplaces and the end of inadequate individual insurance plans, while state Medicaid agencies have been hard at work behind the scenes revamping their business…
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Pitching in to Connect the 5.3 Million Uninsured Children with Coverage
Yesterday we released our annual report on uninsured children. While childhood poverty remains high, we were happy to report that Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) have helped drive the uninsured rate for children down to record lows. While we celebrate the success of all the community leaders, children’s health advocates, state and…
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My Take on the HHS Enrollment Numbers
As we like to say here inside the Beltway, its all about your baseline… So I am actually somewhat pleasantly surprised by the numbers HHS just released. I had very low expectations like everyone else. What seems encouraging to me is the level of interest – between the state and federal marketplace websites there have…
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CHIP’S Start: Early Lessons for Health Reform
By Matt Broaddus, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities The Administration is expected to issue estimates this week of enrollment since October 1 in health reform’s Medicaid expansion and its new health insurance marketplaces — and some media have already reported that the numbers did not meet Administration expectations. But, as we’ve learned by examining the early experience with…
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Beware of Rush to Judgment Based on Early Enrollment Numbers
As we await the first set of marketplace enrollment numbers from HHS, we need to maintain perspective. The Medicare Part D experience tells us that enrolling for a new health benefit is not something you expect to do quickly. As of the equivalent first month report in the fall of 2005, 10 percent of those…