Marketplace
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HHS Awards $40 Million in Outreach and Enrollment Grants
Yesterday, Secretary Sebelius awarded $40 million to 69 grantees in 41 states and the District of Columbia to find and enroll children who are uninsured but eligible for Medicaid or CHIP. This is the first round of outreach and enrollment grants funded through the Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA), which was signed by President…
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Digging in Deeper on the Question of Affordable Premiums in the Senate Finance Committee Mark
By Martha Heberlein What is “affordable” has long been a hot-button issue in the health reform debate. In fact, much of the criticism following the release of the Senate Finance Committee mark centered on this very question. Although there is no consensus on the definition, looking at how much low-income families in public program currently…
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Senate Finance Committee Moves Forward: Key Issues for Child and Family Coverage
By Jocelyn Guyer The Senate Finance Committee began its markup yesterday and moved into high gear today, taking votes for the first time on amendments. Senator Baucus released his mark last Wednesday, September 15th and was immediately deluged with over 500 amendments. Yesterday, he released a revised version that incorporates some of the amendments. From…
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Enrollment Reopens in California’s CHIP Program
Just two months after freezing enrollment in the Healthy Families Program and initiating a waitlist, enrollment has reopened in California Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). A budget shortfall of just under $200 million has been plugged by a generous contribution from the state’s First Five Commission, increased family cost-sharing, and a new premium tax on…
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Is There Oral Health in Health Reform?
Author: Tricia Brooks New England Rural Oral Health Conference — Presentation Documents September 2009
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300% or 400%? A Big Difference for Families
By Martha Heberlein A primary reason many people lack insurance coverage is that they cannot afford it. For the last decade, growth in premiums has far outpaced growth in wages and the cost of private coverage is often out of reach for low- and moderate-income families. One goal of health reform is to provide subsidies…
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Children and Health Care Reform: Assuring Coverage Meets Their Health Care Needs
Because they are growing and developing, children have a distinct set of health care needs that evolve over time and differ from those of adults. Moreover, while as a group children are relatively healthy, one in seven has special health care needs. Given that under reform, many children will be covered through private plans and…
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Will Reconciliation Become the Vehicle for Health Reform?
Back in the spring, there was a lot of talk about whether reconciliation could be used as a vehicle to get health reform through Congress (particularly the Senate). The FY 2010 budget resolution ultimately left the option open for Congress to use reconciliation for health reform if an agreement couldn’t be reached by October 15th.…
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A Hero is Lost
The nation has lost a true hero this week. I didn’t think I had any heroes until I heard the news last year that Senator Kennedy had brain cancer. I cried and cried. Why? Because he was a rich white guy who could have taken his marbles and gone home a long time ago. But…
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Keep Your Eye on the Actuarial Value in Health Reform
When my best friend from childhood graduated from college and started taking a series of actuarial exams en route to becoming an actuarial “fellow,” I thought our professional lives would certainly never cross paths. (Actuarial exams are some of the toughest tests in the world according to Milton Friedman, the Noble prize-winning economist, who decided…
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Pediatric Medical Homes Improve Health and Lower Costs
Health reform is capturing all the headlines these days. And much of the emphasis is on how to contain costs. Unfortunately, what Americans aren’t hearing in the debate is a discussion about the proven ways to reduce costs while improving quality of care and health outcomes. The regrettable assumption is that containing costs means taking…
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Health Reform: Good for Mothers, Good for Families
Julia Kaye, Health Policy Associate, National Women’s Law Center There is a common misconception that all low-income people–or, at least, all poor parents–are eligible for Medicaid. It may derive from a mistaken comparison with Medicare; an assumption that just as Medicare covers all people above a certain age, Medicaid must cover all people below a…
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House Energy and Commerce Committee Passes Health Reform Bill: Highlights for Children and Families
Friday evening the Energy and Commerce Committee approved H.R. 3200, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act. The bill included the amendments and changes I described in my Friday post, including those designed to secure the votes of some of the “Blue Dog” Democrats on the committee without alienating progressive members. The House will now merge this…
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House Tri-Committee Health Reform Bill
It was another eventful week for health reform. You only have to turn on CNN or read the blogs for the political ins and outs. On perhaps the less sexy side of things, we have been busy reading the House’s new 1,018 page health reform bill, the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009. The…
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Health Reform & Budget Reconciliation – It’s not as simple as it seems!
Edwin Park, Senior Fellow, Center of Budget and Policy Priorities Even as each day brings new details about House and Senate health reform legislation and we all gird ourselves for the race to pass health legislation in each chamber before the August recess, a question might be lingering in the back of your mind: what…
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HHS Announces Long-awaited Request for Outreach Grant Proposals
Yesterday HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Medicaid Director Cindy Mann announced the department’s “Request for Proposals (RFP)” for a first round of outreach grants funded through CHIP reauthorization. Find more information here about this long awaited announcement. It’s encouraging that in the RFP the department has embraced a more appropriate definition of outreach which is…
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The Tri-Committee Health Reform Bill: Implications for Children
By Jocelyn Guyer On Friday, almost two weeks ago now, the three major committees in the House with jurisdiction over health reform put out a draft legislative proposal, known as “The Tri-Committee bill.” We’ve now read the 852-page document a few times, and think it would make giant strides in providing access to coverage to…
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Children’s Special Health Care Needs Can Bankrupt Families
Meg Comeau, Project Director for the Catalyst Center, Boston University School of Public Health As policymakers consider health reform, they will need to consider the needs of families raising children with special health care needs. These families are not only hit hard in the pocketbook, they face overwhelming bureaucratic obstacles to coverage. We asked…
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Oregon Isn’t Waiting for Health Reform to Pass In Order to Help Uninsured Children and Families
Guest Blogger, Cathy Kaufman, Communications and Policy Director at Children First for Oregon Liz Arjun has blogged about the fact that CHIPRA has encouraged many states to move forward on health coverage for children despite facing difficult budgetary climates. We have posted guest blogs from children’s health coverage experts in Colorado and Kansas, two of…
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Check out CAP’s YouTube Video and Interactive Map
The creative people at the Center for American Progress have been busy. They have managed to boil down two complex topics into user-friendly tools. First, they released a report with an interactive map demonstrating the economic impact of “uninsurance” (the word is so new it is not in your dictionary yet) on each state. Then…