Medicaid
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Expedited CMS Approvals in Washington and Oregon Can Further Minimize Coverage Disruptions, Aid Unwinding
New CMS approvals in Oregon and Washington will protect health coverage for more children and families during this year’s consequential unwinding, minimizing coverage disruptions and easing transitions to new sources of health coverage. Oregon receives approval to ease coverage transitions for certain adults, allowing them to stay in Medicaid until they can transition to alternative…
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Biden Administration Proposes Two New Rules to Significantly Improve Access to Care for Consumers Enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP
Editor’s Note: Since this post was published, CCF submitted formal comments on both the Medicaid Access and Managed Care proposed rules. If you thought you saw fireworks last night, it could be in celebration of the Biden Administration posting two(!) proposed rules yesterday tackling access to care in Medicaid and CHIP. It will take some…
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Taking a Closer Look at the CBO Estimates of Speaker McCarthy’s Damaging Medicaid Work Reporting Requirement
On April 26, 2023, on a party-line vote, the House passed Speaker McCarthy’s debt ceiling bill (H.R. 2811). The bill would institute trillions of dollars in draconian spending cuts as the price for raising the debt ceiling for less than one year and avoiding catastrophic default on the nation’s debt. As we have written, the…
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Biden Administration Takes Step to Improve DACA Grantees’ Access to Health Coverage, Congress and States Should Do More
Following up on President Biden’s announcement earlier this month, HHS released a proposed rule that would make DACA grantees eligible for Marketplace coverage and some Medicaid/CHIP coverage. This is an important step in the right direction – removing unnecessary and unjustified barriers to health coverage for DACA grantees – but there is more work to…
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State Medicaid and CHIP Options Can Help Address Maternal Health Crisis and Eliminate Racial Health Inequities
Two Say Ahh! blogs published during Black Maternal Health Week this April–one from Marquita Little Numan reflecting on her personal birth story and another by Tanesha Mondestin on the Black Mamas Matter Alliance policy agenda – underscored the need for significant policy change to address the ongoing maternal health crisis facing our country, where Black…
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House Bill Would Codify Flawed Medicaid Variable Best Price Reporting Rule
On Wednesday, April 26, 2023, the Health Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a legislative hearing discussing numerous health bills including H.R. 2666 — the “Medicaid VBPs for Patients Act.” This bill would codify for five years a technical rule finalized late in the Trump Administration that, among other provisions, allowed…
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State Opportunities to Leverage Medicaid and CHIP Coverage to Improve Maternal Health and Eliminate Racial Inequities
Introduction Medicaid and CHIP provide coverage for millions of pregnant people to access essential prenatal, birth-related, and postpartum care each year.[1] Policymakers are taking a fresh look at Medicaid and CHIP options to support better maternal health outcomes in response to the nation’s worsening maternal mortality crisis, the 2022 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v.…
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Assessing the Damaging Impact of Medicaid Work Reporting Requirements in McCarthy Bill
The Medicaid work reporting requirement provisions contained in Section 321 of House Speaker McCarthy’s draft debt ceiling bill released yesterday are a radical attempt to cut federal funds for Medicaid and will threaten coverage for millions of low-income people — not because people aren’t working but because they fail to jump over a whole new…
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Children’s Marketplace Enrollment Increases Again, but Most Children Will Still be Eligible for Medicaid After Unwinding
When it comes to recent trends in children’s coverage, much attention has rightly focused on the significant child enrollment increases in Medicaid over the past few years due in large part to the Medicaid continuous coverage requirement. Although the Marketplaces cover far fewer children by comparison, child enrollment in Marketplace plans has increased substantially for…
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Data Dashboards Offer Transparency to Medicaid Unwinding Process
As Unwinding Wednesday blog readers know, we are obsessed with data. We’ve highlighted key data to use to monitor the unwinding (performance indicators and supplemental unwinding data), stressed the importance of monitoring call center statistics as they will be the canary in the coalmine, and dug into the nuances of data on procedural disenrollments. And…
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Black Mamas Matter Alliance Highlights Policy Change Needed in Honor of Black Maternal Health Week
Today marks the end of Black Maternal Health Week, which is celebrated every year from April 11-17. This initiative was founded by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance (BMMA), which advocates for Black mothers and has goals of changing policy, cultivating research, advancing care, and shifting culture. The week calls attention to the Black maternal health…
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Speaker McCarthy Blames Medicaid for the Labor Shortage! Huh??
“Right now there are more job openings than people who are looking for jobs. You know why? It’s in part because the Biden Administration weakened work requirements. Incentives matter.” While that quote sounds like a line from a Saturday Night Live skit, it’s actually from Speaker McCarthy’s speech today on Wall Street outlining the House…
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DACA Grantees Move Step Closer to Affordable Health Coverage
The Biden Administration made an important announcement today – the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will soon release a proposed rule that would finally give Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) grantees access to health care coverage. Under current law, DACA grantees are ineligible for Medicaid, CHIP, and Marketplace coverage even though other,…
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Unwinding Data from Arkansas – April 1, 2023
The Arkansas Department of Human Services posted their “Monthly Unwinding Report – April 2023,” which includes data from the March 2023 reporting period. View Report
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Birthing With Dignity and Facing the Disparities: My Black Maternal Health Week Reflections
By Marquita Little Numan As we recognize Black Maternal Health Week this year, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on my personal birth experience as a Black mother. In 2021, as we all adjusted to a new normal and navigated life during a pandemic, my family was thankful for a reason to celebrate. We learned…
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What Do the Data Tell Us about the Unwinding of the Medicaid Continuous Enrollment Requirement?
When watching a baseball game, we rely on the scoreboard to keep track of the score, strikes, balls, outs, etc. But unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple when it comes to keeping up with the Medicaid continuous coverage winddown. So far, we have very little data available to monitor the unwinding. CCF is posting state…
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What Happens when the Medicaid “Unwinding” Meets a Natural Disaster?
It turns out that you can’t schedule natural disasters. They happen and they don’t particularly care when. Most recent case in point: Two weeks ago, tornados devastated three counties in Arkansas and six counties in Mississippi, resulting in approval of federal disaster assistance by President Biden and, in the case of Mississippi, a Public Health…
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Unwinding Data from Idaho – March 31, 2023
On March 31, 2023, Idaho Department of Health and Welfare Director Dave Jeppesen released a statement that the state has processed redeterminations for 32,898 individuals, 19,251 of which were found to be ineligible. These individuals are to lose coverage on April 1, 2023. Read the Statement
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Unwinding Data from Arizona – April 1, 2023
On April 1, 2023, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System uploaded a new ‘Population by Category’ spreadsheet, which included Medicaid coverage loss as of April 1. View the Spreadsheet
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First Round of Medicaid Disenrollment Data Is In Quickly: What We Know and Don’t Know
Five states (AR, AZ, ID, NH, SD) started disenrolling people from Medicaid last weekend (April 1st) as the unprecedented Medicaid “unwinding” begins. As readers of SayAhh! know, in exchange for extra federal funds, states have been prohibited from disenrolling anyone involuntarily from Medicaid since March 2020 due to the COVID-19 public health emergency. Quicker than…
