Medicaid
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New CCF Issue Brief on Strengthening Effective Medicaid Drug Rebate Program
Today, we issued our fifth issue brief in our Future of Children’s Health Coverage series. It focuses on how to build upon and improve the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program at both the federal and state levels in order to help state Medicaid programs better address their rising prescription drug costs. This, in turn, would ensure continued…
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How to Strengthen the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program to Address Rising Medicaid Prescription Drug Costs
Fifth in a series of briefs on the future of children’s health care coverage Introduction Prescription drugs are essential for the health of tens of millions of low-income children enrolled in Medicaid. They not only are part of routine pediatric care but also provide critical treatment and maintenance for chronic conditions such as asthma and…
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2016 Maps
The interactive maps and data for 2016 provide information on the percent of adults and children covered by Medicaid and/or CHIP.You can embed these maps on your website by selecting a state on the left then copying the embed code on the right side of the map and pasting it into a post on your…
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First Steps: A Spotlight on Check-ups and Developmental Screenings for Young Texans
A baby’s brain forms more than 1 million new neural connections every second. This incredible rate of early brain development, supported by nurturing and engaged caregivers, provides a foundation for children to master new skills like crawling, walking, language, and social interactions. Experiences during this period of rapid growth and early brain development pave the…
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There’s Always Opportunity to Make Medicaid and CHIP Work Better: A Look at Connecticut
Recently, I had the opportunity to take a close look at how well Connecticut’s Medicaid and CHIP programs – known as Husky Health – are serving children. My assessment and recommendations were published in a new brief released recently by the Connecticut Health Foundation. In many ways, Husky Health is a high performing Medicaid and…
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MACPAC Releases Medicaid Eligibility, Enrollment and Renewal Case Studies Examining New Data-Driven Processes
Before the holidays, MACPAC and its contractor, SHADAC, (the State Health Access Data Assistance Center at the University of Minnesota) released findings of a study that examined the status of the new data-driven enrollment and renewal processes enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act. The case studies report on how six states – Arizona,…
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What Does the Partial Government Shutdown Mean for Medicaid and CHIP?
A year ago, the entire federal government was shut down for three days over a dispute about DACA. My colleague Kelly Whitener explained the implications of that full shutdown for Medicaid and CHIP. We are now in the 14th day of a partial government shutdown over a dispute about funding for a border wall. Unlike the full…
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New Report Finds South Carolina’s Medicaid Waiver Would Leave Thousands of Poor Parents Uninsured
[Editor’s Note: On March 4, 2019 South Carolina posted a revised application for state public comment.] Just before the holidays, South Carolina posted its application for new work-related reporting rules for very low-income parents and caretaker relatives with incomes below 67 percent of the poverty line who are insured through Medicaid. Today we partnered with South Carolina…
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Low-Income Families with Children Will Be Harmed by South Carolina’s Proposed Medicaid Work Reporting Requirement
[Editor’s Note: On March 4, 2019 South Carolina posted a revised application for state public comment.] Introduction South Carolina officials are proposing that very low-income parents and caregivers who qualify for Medicaid fulfill new reporting requirements to show they are working at least 80 hours a month or participating in job- training activities — or…
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Call for Nominations for Child and Adult Core Set Annual Review Workgroup
Each year CMS is required to review both the Child and Adult Core Sets of Health Quality Measures in Medicaid and CHIP. To inform the effort, CMS and its partners convene a multi-stakeholder Medicaid workgroup to provide guidance on the core sets. Mathematica Research is coordinating the recruitment of individuals to participate in the 2019…
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California’s Mandate to Treat Children on Medi-Cal Is Now a Little Clearer
The Medicaid Act, the federal law governing California’s Medi-Cal Program, has long contained specific benefit requirements for covering children and youth under the age of 21 through the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment – or “EPSDT” – services mandate. Despite its unmemorable name, this federal mandate critically identifies that children and adolescents are…
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More Arkansans Lose Medicaid Health Coverage Just Before the Holidays
Earlier this week, Arkansas released the latest round of data showing that their misguided policy requiring adults to prove they are working in order to retain Medicaid coverage is continuing to fail. In December, 4,655 people lost health insurance, bringing the total coverage losses to nearly 17,000 so far, though thousands more will lose coverage…
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CMS Announces New Connecting Kids to Coverage Outreach and Enrollment Grants
CMS announced the availability of $48 million in “Connecting Kids to Coverage” outreach and enrollment grants and not a moment too soon. As we recently reported, our nation’s progress on children’s health coverage actually reversed course last year registering the first statistically significant increase in the child uninsured rate in a decade. As a majority…
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Troubling Trend Emerges for Young Children’s Health Coverage, Threatens Healthy Lifelong Development
Last year saw the nation’s first increase in the number of uninsured children in nearly a decade, and young children were not immune to this troubling trend. Just as the rate of uninsured children increased on a statistically significant basis for all children under age 19 between 2016 and 2017, so it increased significantly for…
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More State Medicaid Programs Covering Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Services
Good news: More state Medicaid programs covered infant and early childhood mental health screenings, diagnoses and treatments in 2018 than in 2017. The results from the 2018 update of the National Center for Children in Poverty’s 50-state survey, “How States Use Medicaid to Cover Key Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Services,” illustrate the growing…
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Hundreds of Thousands Weigh in on Proposed Public Charge Rule
This week, we joined over 215,000 individuals and organizations in commenting on the proposed rule to radically change the meaning of public charge. As a reminder, public charge is a term used in U.S. immigration law to refer to a person who is likely to become dependent on the government for financial and material support.…
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CMS Unveils Latest National Health Expenditures Estimates
On December 6, the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) unveiled its latest National Health Expenditures (NHE) estimates for 2017. There were several noteworthy findings related to the Medicaid program: Growth in overall Medicaid spending slowed to 2.9 percent in 2017, down from 4.2 percent in 2016. According…
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No Changes to Child Core Set of Health Care Quality Measures in Medicaid and CHIP for 2019
CMS has announced that the Child Core Set of Quality Measures in Medicaid and CHIP will remain the same for 2019. No new measures will be introduced, nor will any 2018 measures be retired. CMS is required to review the core measures annually, and does so in partnership with the National Quality Forum (NQF) and…
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CMS Posts New Medicaid and CHIP Application Processing Time Report
Say Ahhh! readers know that I have long been frustrated at the delay in releasing state-level performance indicator data in Medicaid and CHIP. While CMS has posted enrollment and application data for some time, data on the remaining performance indicators – which were announced in September 2013 (that’s more than five years ago!) – have…
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The Importance of Medicaid to Kentucky’s Rural Areas is Eye Popping
In 2017, we embarked on a new project with the Rural Health Research Program at the University of North Carolina Sheps Center for Health Services Research to examine the role of Medicaid in rural areas and small towns. In our first report, Medicaid is a Lifeline for Small Towns and Rural Communities, we highlighted the…
