Medicaid
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Proposed Changes to Medicaid Managed Care Rule Will Reduce Access to Providers
One year ago, CMS Administrator Seema Verma gave a major policy address to state Medicaid directors in which she promised to “rollback burdensome regulations that the federal government has imposed on states.” She specifically targeted two, both of which were issued by the prior administration: the Access Rule (November 2015), and the Managed Care Rule…
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Military Kids Need Medicaid Too
By: LCDR Anthony P. Putney, USN (ret.) — Father and caregiver to Lily I’m a veteran of the United States Navy, a nurse and parent to four children along with my wife, Carie. I work hard today to provide for my family, and I spent 23 years in active service to the nation. Knowing all this,…
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Another Place for Medicaid Attention: Young Children’s Social Emotional Development
Early childhood mental health is not as widely understood and does not look the same as mental health challenges for older children or adults. But there’s good news: effective, evidence-informed, and promising interventions that support infant and toddlers’ mental health are available. That’s where Medicaid can help. Our latest paper, Using Medicaid to Ensure the…
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New Report Shows Progress on Children’s Health Coverage Reversed Course
[Editor’s Note: For the most recent Georgetown University Center for Children and Families report on children’s health coverage and an interactive version of the report with state-by-state data, click here.] For the past eight years, CCF has published a report tracking health coverage rates for children across the country. This year, for the first time…
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Midterm Elections Improve Prospects for Medicaid Expansion in North Carolina
The loss of Republican supermajorities in the North Carolina House and Senate in the recent midterms was the first sign of an improving climate for expanding Medicaid in the Tarheel state. Now when Democratic Governor Roy Cooper exercises his veto power, Democrats in the legislature can block legislation – including the annual state budget bill…
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Surprise! CMS Approves Kentucky Work Requirement Waiver Again
Yesterday, CMS reapproved the Kentucky work requirement waiver. The reapproval comes less than two weeks after Congress’s Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC) wrote a letter to the Secretary of HHS asking for a pause in disenrollments resulting from the Arkansas work requirement waiver, less than a week after Arkansas announced that over…
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Using Medicaid to Ensure the Healthy Social and Emotional Development of Infants and Toddlers
Part I: Executive Summary Each child’s social-emotional development underpins overall development and greatly influences his or her lifelong trajectory. Infants and toddlers experience a period of rapid brain development marked by great possibility and vulnerability, depending on their family and community contexts. The first years of life are particularly crucial to a child’s development of…
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Nation’s Progress on Children’s Health Coverage Reverses Course
Introduction For the first time since comparable data was first collected in 2008, the nation’s steady progress in reducing the number of children without health insurance reversed course. The number of uninsured children under age 19[note] This report examines children under age 19 because of changes to the health insurance age categories in the 2017…
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Louisiana Medicaid Audit Report Misses the Mark
A recent legislative audit of the adult Medicaid expansion in Louisiana compares apples and oranges to arrive at a conclusion that millions of dollars were paid on behalf of Medicaid enrollees who did not qualify. But is it accurate to characterize these individuals as ineligible? No, not when you consider the flexibility states have in…
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Arkansas Data are Clear – Trump’s Medicaid Policy is a Dangerous Failure
The primary focus of the Trump Administration’s approach to Medicaid has been to encourage states to impose work and “community engagement” requirements on adults in Medicaid through Section 1115 Medicaid waivers. As regular readers of SayAhhh! know, Arkansas is the first state in the nation to impose these new rules on its Medicaid expansion policy.…
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How Proposed Changes to Public Charge Would Impact Children in Immigrant Communities
Editor’s Note, 10/15/19: Several federal courts have issued nationwide injunctions blocking implementation of the proposed changes to the public charge rule. We will update any further developments. Introduction The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a proposed regulation that would radically change U.S. immigration policy. The changes would ripple through nearly every aspect of the…
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How Medicaid’s networks could change
Axios Vitals Newsletter By: Sam Baker Health insurers that run state Medicaid programs must have adequate networks of doctors so people don’t have to travel far. But that may change under a new federal proposal, Axios’ Bob Herman reports. How it works: An Obama-era rule required states to come up with “time and distance” standards…
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Medicaid at the Ballot Box: More Coverage or More Barriers? (Part 2)
I blogged earlier about which of the 17 non-expansion states might see a change in their status on the horizon post election. Today I take a look at states that already have expanded (yes, I count Maine as an expansion state despite Governor LePage’s best efforts to thwart the will of the people), where we…
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Actual State Budget Impacts in Five States that Expanded Medicaid
Michigan, Montana, Louisiana, Colorado and Virginia have all expanded Medicaid. In each of these states, local analysis has shown expanding Medicaid has either been a positive for the state’s general fund revenues or has not resulted in any additional cost to the state. The reason is a combination of substantial state savings from Medicaid now…
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Medicaid at the 2018 Ballot Box: What to Look For (Part 1)
Next Tuesday (as usual) I will be staying up late to see what happens in the midterm elections. But for the first time in more than twenty years of working on Medicaid there will be so much to watch out for that will directly affect Medicaid! Today I will start with the 17 states that…
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Advocates Have a Key Role to Play Encouraging Early Childhood Sector to Leverage Medicaid to Meet Children’s Developmental Needs
Medicaid and early childhood care providers, including Head Start, child care centers, and home visiting programs, serve many of the same low-income children, yet the two systems rarely collaborate to improve overall population health. Reaching vulnerable children in their early years of physical, social and emotional development is essential to setting them on a path…
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More Rural Hospitals Closing in States Refusing Medicaid Coverage Expansion
The University of North Carolina’s Rural Health Research Program tracks closures of rural hospitals across the country. From 2010 to the present there are six states with five or more rural hospital closures. Texas leads with a stunning 15 rural hospitals closed, followed closely by Tennessee (9 rural hospitals closed) and Georgia (7 rural hospitals…
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Archived Webinar: EPSDT for Providers and Advocates: When to Engage the Legal Community Webinar
In this webinar, presenters discuss medical and legal partnerships and Medicaid EPSDT advocacy, working with legal services lawyers to help children access medical care, and more.
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Medicaid Work Requirement Waivers: Time for CMS to Hit the Pause Button
Yesterday members of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC – a Congressional agency) received a briefing from staff on the implementation of the Arkansas work requirement waiver. Staff reviewed the latest data from the state as well as the findings from their own inquiries to various stakeholders. The presentation confirmed my reading…
