By Ashley Storms, New England Alliance for Children’s Health Pursuing health coverage for all children can sometimes feel like pouring water into a leaky bucket. Even when outreach and enrollment efforts are strong, a substantial portion of children will lose their insurance at least once. Unstable insurance coverage, known as “churn,” is inefficient and keeps […]
By Joe Touschner As Tricia Brooks wrote last week, new rules set limits on how states handle lock out periods for children enrolled in CHIP. Several states impose a lock out period—a length of time when a child may not receive CHIP coverage—when families fail to pay CHIP premiums. The new rules limit lock out […]
Over the past several years, I have had the pleasure of participating as a technical assistance faculty member for Maximizing Enrollment, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with technical assistance and direction provided by the National Academy of State Health Policy. The program works intensively with eight states to (as the name […]
Thirty-three (33) states charge premiums or enrollment fees for children enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP, starting as low as 101% of the federal poverty level in CHIP. In the past, federal guidelines for dealing with premium grace periods and nonpayment of premiums were minimal, particularly in CHIP. It was not until CHIP was reauthorized in […]
Trusted community-based organizations and health care providers have been a key part of our nation’s success in bringing the rate of uninsured children down to an historic low. These community partners will also be an important resource in connecting consumers to new coverage options under the Affordable Care Act. In particular, certified application counselors (CACs) […]
Working in the weeds of health policy, it’s easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of the health care law. And in the media, we are constantly bombarded with the aspects of the law that are most controversial or problematic. So sometimes we lose perspective (I know I do) as we seek perfection in […]
