Medicaid
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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…
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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…
