Marketplace
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Making Sure Primary Care’s Pay Raise Gets Implemented
Ever had an employer promise you a raise and not deliver? Sure, occasionally the payroll department delays getting the money in your paycheck, but generally speaking, you expect your employer to follow-through. Will this be the case with the mandatory bump-up in Medicaid payment rates to Medicare-equivalent levels for primary care services? Wonk-warning ahead –…
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Medical Homes: Local Focus, Better Health
As policymakers across the country look to balance their budgets, some are turning to Medicaid, recycling the same harmful policies they’ve used year-after-year: eliminating coverage for vulnerable Americans, restricting critical benefits like prescription drug coverage, imposing premiums on those who can’t afford them, and slashing already-low provider reimbursement rates. Community Catalyst and Georgetown University Health…
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House Passes Sequester Replacement Bill – Could Impact Kids Health Care
By Jocelyn Guyer Today the House of Representatives passed the “Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act”. As we’ve mentioned before, the Senate is not planning to take up the measure and the Administration has issued a veto threat should the lopsided measure reach the President’s desk. Despite those assurances, it is worth looking into the measure as…
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Have You Thanked a Nurse Lately?
I’m really bad at keeping up with all these national days, weeks and months of recognition. I somehow missed the opportunity to indulge on National Potato Chip Day (March 14). I didn’t even notice that Ohio Governor Kasich signed a proclamation earlier this year designating February 6 as National Pork Rind Day. But today I…
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Affordable Care Act: Legislation, Regulation and Guidance
Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families contributes an independent voice to the dialogue on how to most effectively make the promise of the Affordable Care Act a reality for children and families.
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A Question of Priorities
By Martha Heberlein As the Energy and Commerce Committee searches for options to save the Department of Defense from cuts, coverage for millions of children, parents, pregnant women, the elderly, and people with disabilities could end up on the chopping block. This is just one of a number of distressing offsets that also includes repealing…
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A Question of Priorities
By Martha Heberlein As the Energy and Commerce Committee searches for options to save the Department of Defense from cuts, coverage for millions of children, parents, pregnant women, the elderly, and people with disabilities could end up on the chopping block. This is just one of a number of distressing offsets that also includes repealing exchange…
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Health Disparities Persist Among Children: Opportunities for the ACA
By Tara Mancini While Minority Health Month draws to a close this week, the just released “National Healthcare Disparities Report,” from the Agency for Health Care Quality illustrates the urgency for dedicating more attention to the issue. Mandated by Congress, the 2011 report is the ninth to be issued. Overall, the report finds that access…
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Video Advocacy – It’s Easier than it Looks
By Adam Searing, North Carolina Justice Center Recently my colleague Adam Linker and I had the opportunity from our friends here at the Georgetown Center for Children and Families and Atlantic Philanthropies to leave the North Carolina Justice Center and travel to other state capitols around the country. Packing our bags and braving airport…
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Keep Calm and Carry On
If you were anything like me during the Supreme Court oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act, you jumped every time a news alert came over your email, and then audibly groaned as you read missives such as: “THE ACA IS DOOMED! 9 OUT OF 10 LEGAL SCHOLARS AGREE!” Amazing how conventional wisdom can change…
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Essential Health Benefits Resources List
The following is a resource list related essential health benefits.
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CCF Shares Resource List on Essential Health Benefits
By Joe Touschner If you’re a regular Say Ahhh! reader, you’ve seen a number of posts already on the ongoing process to define the essential health benefits. Most of those linked to additional supporting documents, like the Bulletin and FAQ released by HHS and the comparison of potential benchmark plans from Maine’s insurance department. And many more…
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Final Exchange Rules Provide Roles for Both Brokers and Navigators
One of the thorniest issues arising early on in states at the forefront of planning and implementing their Exchanges has been the role of brokers and navigators. In a number of states, brokers have contended that only “licensed brokers” should serve as navigators. On the other hand, consumer groups have maintained that brokers lack not…
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Why Kids’ Advocates Should Pay Attention to SHOP
By Kathleen Hamilton, The Children’s Partnership One of the first and most interesting questions posed by the California Health Benefit Exchange (HBEX) to its Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) stakeholder work group was “who is the SHOP consumer?” Early discussions clearly revealed a fundamental assumption that the “consumer” in SHOP was the employer. As…
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ACA’s Medicaid Expansion is Popular with Public
One of the least often discussed provisions of the Affordable Care Act continues to be one of the most popular according to the latest Kaiser Health News tracking poll. Seventy percent of those responding to the poll thought favorably about the ACA provision to expand Medicaid to more low-income uninsured adults. That’s right up there…
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Holding Insurers Accountable: Should We Add an MLR to Medicaid?
A hot issue in many states today is whether or not to move more Medicaid beneficiaries, and often very vulnerable beneficiaries, into managed care. Indeed, many managed care companies are interested in getting or keeping a foot in the Medicaid market given the expansion of Medicaid coming in 2014. And many, though not all, states are…
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Taking Stock of Important Milestones as ACA Turns Two
By Kevin Lucia, Georgetown University Health Policy Institute’s Center on Health Insurance Studies When a child turns two, it’s natural to take stock of all the milestones they have achieved such as first steps, first words and first solid foods. Some parents are even organized enough to document all these achievements in a baby book. …
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Sharpen your Speed Reading Skills – Regs are Coming Fast and Furious
By Jocelyn Guyer In recent days, we’ve started to feel a bit like Lucy and Ethel in their famous chocolate factory scene where the conveyor belt keeps speeding up faster than they can box the candy. Lately, HHS and other federal agencies have been releasing important ACA regulations at such a fast and furious pace…
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ACA Protects and Improves Access to Preventive Care for Children
Medicaid and CHIP have helped millions of children access preventive care at no cost to families. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) takes this commitment further by removing cost and coverage barriers that could deter families from taking full advantage of preventive care services in private insurance plans. Since becoming law, the ACA has helped maintain…