Medicaid
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How Would Medicaid Provisions of New Law to Address Opioid Epidemic Impact Children?
Today President Trump signed the “SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act” into law. SUPPORT is an acronym for “Substance Use—Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment.” The bill, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in both the House (396-14) and the Senate (98-1), is 250 pages long. It affects a broad array of federal…
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Archived Webinar: Helping State Medicaid Programs Better Address Rising Drug Costs
This webinar reviews overall drug pricing trends, current beneficiary access protections, effectiveness of Medicaid Drug Rebate Program, and state strategies to address rising Medicaid prescription drug costs while maintaining access to needed drugs.
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What Medicaid Can Do for Our Nation’s Youngest Children
The science is clear: We have a critical opportunity to reach young children during a period of rapid development, with the brain forming one million new neural connections every second. These earliest years are full of possibilities equally as powerful as the vulnerabilities that greatly influence children’s lifelong trajectories. Anyone who’s had the pleasure of chatting…
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Promoting Young Children’s Healthy Development in Medicaid and CHIP
Summary A child’s brain develops most rapidly in the earliest years of life, building the foundation for learning, behavior and health. Medicaid—as the primary source of health coverage for young, low-income children— is a logical system to reach families with young children and set them on a path of healthy physical, social, and emotional development.…
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Arkansas Numbers Tell the Story: Trump’s Medicaid Work Requirement Policy Promotes Coverage Losses not Work
Like many folks who work on Medicaid policy, we’ve been paying close attention to what is happening in Arkansas – the first state in the country to implement a work activities reporting requirement in Medicaid.[1] Earlier this week, the second round of data was released by the state documenting that another 4,109 Medicaid beneficiaries lost…
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Urban Institute Updates Uninsurance and Medicaid/CHIP Participation Data for Children and Parents
Several weeks ago, I blogged about a Health Affairs article by Urban Institute researchers that updated the Medicaid and CHIP participation rates for children and parents. Over time, an increasing share of eligible children without other coverage have been enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP, reaching a high of 93.7 percent in 2016, up from 88.7…
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Developmental Screening Rates Improving for Most States Reporting Child Core Set Measure
We were thrilled to see release of the latest Child Core Set measures late last week. Say Ahhh! readers know we are closely following this state-reported data as a means to measure quality of care for children—especially since states will be required to report all Child Core Set measures starting in 2024, thanks to the…
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New Recommendations for the Child Core Set of Quality Measures in Medicaid and CHIP
Recently, the National Quality Forum (NQF) released its annual report on opportunities to strengthen the child core set of quality measures in Medicaid and CHIP. The initial core set was released in 2010 and its underlying legislative mandate requires CMS to update the core set annually. NQF partners with CMS and a multi-stakeholder Medicaid workgroup…
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2017 Child Core Set of Health Care Quality Indicators in Medicaid and CHIP Released
The results of state reporting on the 2017 Child Core Set of Health Care Quality Measures in Medicaid and CHIP have been released by CMS. The 2017 Child Core Set includes 27 measures that assess key aspects of health care access for children and pregnant women. While reporting on last year’s core set seems timely,…
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Children Struggle to Access Autism Treatment
By Julie Kornack, Center for Autism and Related Disorders With a prevalence of 1 in every 59 children, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has become increasingly commonplace. In turn, the growing autism advocacy community has been extraordinarily effective in engendering the political will to enact laws intended to ensure that individuals with ASD have access…
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More States Link Maternal Depression Screenings to Well-Child Visits
More than twice the number of states now cover maternal depression screenings in Medicaid well child visits, up to 25 states from 11 states just one year ago. This is good news for mothers and children, and comes from an update of the National Center for Children in Poverty’s two-generation state policy profiles. The profiles…
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Rural Residents and Communities Have Much at Stake in Medicaid Expansion
Last year, working with our partners at the University of North Carolina’s Rural Health Project, we released a report that underscored the critical role that Medicaid plays in rural areas and small towns with populations below 50,000. This year Jack Hoadley, Mark Holmes and I took a look at how Medicaid expansion has impacted these same…
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Health Insurance Coverage in Small Towns and Rural America: The Role of Medicaid Expansion
Introduction Medicaid has been a key factor in lowering the percentage of Americans who lack health insurance. Nationally, the uninsured rate for all Americans under the age of 65 (adults and children) fell dramatically between 2010 and 2016 from 18.2 percent to 10.4 percent, rising slightly to 10.7 percent in 2017.[note]These data measure insurance status…
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Public Comments are Virtually Unanimous Against Mississippi’s Harmful Medicaid Proposal
Last month, federal CMS reopened the public comment period on Mississippi’s proposed Section 1115 Medicaid work requirements waiver at the same time as Kentucky’s comment period was reopened. Mississippi’s proposal has not garnered as much attention as Kentucky’s, which as regular readers of SayAhhh! know, is currently on hold due to a federal court decision.…
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New Census Data Reveal Troubling Signs for Children’s Health Coverage
Last week, the Census Bureau partially released the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) of the 2017 Current Population Survey (CPS) and the 2017 American Community Survey (ACS) health insurance data. In the past we have celebrated dramatic gains in health coverage for children as the share of uninsured children continued to decline. But this…
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Next Effort to Repeal ACA Would Likely Look Like Last One
Unsurprisingly, according to recent news reports (here and here), Congressional Republicans plan to pursue another attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act next year if they maintain control of Congress after the midterm elections in November. Any repeal effort would likely be based on the 2017 bills from Senators Cassidy and Graham and a somewhat…
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Coverage Losses Begin From Mean-spirited Trump Administration Medicaid Policy
The first round of data just released by the state of Arkansas (the first state nationwide to implement a work requirement with a lockout) shows that 4,353 adults lost coverage retroactively to September 1st. The data continue to show a clear lack of awareness about the new reporting requirements with thousands more set to lose…
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Thousands in Arkansas lose Medicaid because of new work requirements
CNN By: Tami Luhby As many as 4,600 Medicaid recipients in Arkansas have lost their benefits for the rest of this year after failing to meet the state’s new work requirements. … Consumer advocates, however, pointed to the results as proof that work requirements do not help people find jobs. They just add more hurdles…
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Dismissal of Co-Chair of Iowa Medicaid Advisory Panel is Setback for Much Needed Oversight
Medicaid is evolving. Its consumer advisory committees should too. State Medicaid programs are bureaucracies, and it’s understandable that agency leaders may not always have a pulse on what’s happening with members and providers and plans at any given moment. That’s why federal law has long required states to set up medical care advisory committees (MCACs),…
