Medicaid
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The Number of Uninsured Children is on the Rise
[Editor’s Note: For the most recent report on children’s health coverage, click here.] Introduction For many years, the nation has been on a positive trajectory reducing the number and rate of uninsured children. Having health insurance is important for children as they are more likely to receive needed services, have better educational outcomes, and their…
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Improving State Administration and Procedures to Regain Medicaid/CHIP Enrollment Momentum for Kids
See our full blog series on evidence-based policies available to policymakers to prevent more eligible children from losing health coverage. As Say Ahhh! readers know, in May, we released a comprehensive report showing that child enrollment dropped by nearly 1 million children in 38 states in 2018 and have continued to track the growing enrollment…
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Maximizing the Use of Technology to Regain Enrollment Momentum in Medicaid
See our full blog series on evidence-based policies available to policymakers to prevent more eligible children from losing health coverage. As Say Ahhh! readers know, in May, we released a comprehensive report showing that child enrollment dropped by nearly 1 million children in 38 states in 2018 and we have continued to track the growing…
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Here are the Facts About Anti-Immigrant Policies Pushed by the Administration and Their Impact on Children and Families
It’s hard to keep up these days on the policies pushed by this Administration that unfairly target immigrant families, but it’s important to be aware and to hold those who are in power accountable. Over the last two years, we’ve tracked harmful policies such as “zero tolerance” at the border and changes to public charge…
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Most Recent CMS Data Show Child Enrollment in Medicaid/CHIP Dips Again in June 2019
In June, another 62,000 children lost Medicaid or CHIP coverage, bringing the 18-month enrollment decline (between December 2017 and June 2019) to more than 1.1 million children nationwide or an overall 3 percent drop. Based on CMS or state enrollment data, 37 states have experienced declines of enrollment ranging from less than 1 percent to…
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GAO To CMS: Set Goals, Measure Progress on EPSDT (Do Better)
Another day, another area where CMS could be spending its valuable resources to fulfill Medicaid’s mission to provide health care to low-income Americans, including and especially children. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress’s watchdog for federal agencies, has some ideas. Regular Say Ahhh! readers know the great potential of Medicaid’s pediatric benefit, called EPSDT. Medicaid…
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Medicaid Expansion Debate: A New Phase
Across the states, moving towards an election year typically means a retreat from policymakers wanting to take on major issues of interest to their constituents for fear of offending one side or the other. In an era of increasing “constant campaigns” rather than actual governance, this can mean even more legislative paralysis. But health care…
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Healthy Schools Campaign Webinar Looks at Importance of Medicaid to Student Success
Think fast: What the third largest stream of federal funding flowing into public schools? Since this is Say Ahhh!, you’re probably guessing Medicaid, and you’d be right. School districts across the country receive an estimated $4.5 billion in federal Medicaid dollars every year. That’s less than 1 percent of federal Medicaid spending, but in terms…
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Short-Term Funding Bill Keeps Government Open, Also Includes Sound Provision Reducing Federal and State Medicaid Drug Costs
On September 29, the President signed into law a fiscal year 2020 appropriations bill (H.R. 4378) that temporarily funds the federal government through November 21. The bill also includes several short-term extensions of critical health provisions that were scheduled to expire: full Medicaid funding for Puerto Rico and the other territories, a delay in scheduled…
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Medicaid Managed Care Transparency: A Leap Forward
The California Health Care Foundation has just issued a path-breaking report that marks an important step forward on the road to full transparency about Medicaid managed care. The report, prepared by Dr. Andrew Bindman and his colleagues at the University of California at San Francisco, examines the performance of managed care plans (MCPs) in Medi-Cal…
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Strategies to Address Alarming Decline in Children’s Health Coverage
In this blog series, CCF Executive Director and Research Professor Joan Alker previews her ninth annual report on children’s health coverage and examines the alarming increase in the number of uninsured children after years of bipartisan success in reducing the child uninsured rate. Research Professor Tricia Brooks — a policy expert and former state CHIP…
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Boosting Outreach and Consumer Assistance to Regain Enrollment Momentum
See our full blog series on evidence-based policies available to policymakers to prevent more eligible children from losing health coverage. As Say Ahhh! readers know, in May, we released a comprehensive report showing that child enrollment dropped by nearly 1 million children in 38 states in 2018 and have continued to track the growing enrollment…
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Tennessee Medicaid “Block Grant” Proposal: Imagination Gone Wild
The Tennessee Medicaid agency has posted a proposal to convert a portion of its federal funding to a “block grant.” The proposal, which responds to a directive from the Tennessee State Legislature, takes the form of an amendment to the state’s current section 1115 demonstration, which expires at the end of June 2021. The state…
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Policy Options: How to Regain Momentum on Medicaid/CHIP Enrollment
See our full blog series on evidence-based policies available to policymakers to prevent more eligible children from losing health coverage. As Say Ahhh! readers know, we began reporting on the precipitous drop in Medicaid and CHIP enrollment earlier this year after child enrollment had declined by more than half a million kids, which has now…
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Research Update: Uninsured Children with Mental Health Emergencies Experience Higher Odds of Hospital Transfer
This week, I am reading a study from researchers at the University of California Davis’ Departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry, which uses a national data sample from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project 2014 Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS) to investigate the association between types of child health coverage and hospital decisions to admit or…
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“Intentional Program Violations” (IPVs): Weaponizing Program Integrity to Undercut Medicaid Expansion
Last November, Utah voters passed an initiative calling for Medicaid expansion. Since then, Utah policymakers have been fighting a convoluted battle against covering low-income adults that has been chronicled by my colleagues Joan Alker, Adam Searing, and Kelly Whitener. The latest chapter in this saga is Utah’s “per capita cap” waiver, which is now before…
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How Can Policymakers Stop More Children From Losing Health Coverage and Regain Enrollment Momentum?
See our full blog series on evidence-based policies available to policymakers to prevent more eligible children from losing health coverage. Sometimes you just hate to be right. The release of topline Census data last week confirmed our fears that the most recent health insurance data would reveal that we lost ground in providing health coverage…
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The Future of Coverage for American Indian and Alaska Native Children
As you may possibly have heard by now, the uninsured rate for children is heading in the wrong direction. It increased from 5 percent in 2017 to 5.5 percent in 2018, which translates into an additional 425,000 uninsured children. Among the children whom this trend likely affects are American Indians and Alaska Natives, but we…
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Promoting Health Coverage of American Indian and Alaska Native Children
Introduction In 2017 there were approximately 774,000 American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) children under age 19, comprising about 1 percent of the 78.1 million children nationwide.[note]Georgetown University Center for Children and Families analysis of the U.S. Census 2017 American Community Survey data from American Fact Finder Table C27001C using 1-year estimates of AI/AN alone.[/note]…
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Why are There More Uninsured Kids and What Can We Do About It?
Yesterday the Census Bureau released one of its annual surveys (the Current Population Survey or CPS), which looks at health insurance status. This year, in an unusual move, the Bureau actually released a mini special report focusing on children. While we await more data at the end of the month from the American Community Survey…
