Medicaid
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New Waiver Proposal for Oklahoma Medicaid Beneficiaries Would Harm Low-Income Families With Children
Introduction Oklahoma is planning to ask federal permission to impose a work requirement on very low-income parents and caregivers receiving health coverage through Medicaid. Under the proposal, these beneficiaries would have to document that they are working at least 20 hours a week or participating in job-training or volunteer activities in order to maintain their…
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Proposed Fix to Harmful Medicaid Waivers Impacting Very Poor Parents in Alabama and Mississippi is no Fix at All
Both Alabama and Mississippi have submitted Medicaid Section 1115 waiver proposals that would impose work/community engagement requirements rules on poor parents and caregivers. Because these states have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and have some of them most restrictive eligibility limits in the nation, most people facing loss of health coverage due…
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Indexing Capital Gains Would Add to Deficit, Adversely Impact State Budgets and Imperil Medicaid Funding
Even though the Trump Administration almost certainly lacks the authority to do so, press reports indicate that the Administration is considering issuing a new regulation to provide another large tax cut for the wealthy. The regulation would index capital gains for inflation, substantially lowering the amounts that would be subject to taxation. As the Center…
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Red States May Be Ready to Expand Medicaid — In Exchange for Work
Pew Stateline By: Christine Vestal Kentucky Republican Gov. Matt Bevin says he doesn’t want more able-bodied poor people to get Medicaid in his state unless a portion of them are required to work. And when Republicans in Virginia agreed to expand Medicaid this year, they also said recipients who are able would have to work.…
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Medicaid Waiver Wars: CMS Strikes Back
Late last month, a federal District Court ruled that the approval of the Kentucky Medicaid work requirements waiver by the Secretary of Health and Human Services was “arbitrary and capricious” because, among other things, even though the record showed that 95,000 people would lose Medicaid coverage, “the Secretary paid no attention to that deprivation.” The…
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Medicaid and Work: Fact and Fiction in Government Reports
Last week saw the release of two reports on Medicaid and work. One, from the nonpartisan Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC), an arm of the Congress, is fact. The other, from the White House Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), is fiction. The difference matters, because it goes to the basic identity of…
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Is there renewed hope for Medicaid expansion in Missouri?
St. Louis Post-Dispatch By: Samantha Liss Health care advocates in Missouri are closely watching successful efforts to put Medicaid expansion on the ballot in other red states. Last year, voters in Maine approved expanding Medicaid through a ballot initiative, the first state to gain approval through a public vote. … “Interestingly, Medicaid has always polled…
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Perry County to Tuscaloosa: A 70-Minute Drive for Rural Women Seeking Obstetrics Care
I have driven the 57 miles from Perry County, Alabama to Tuscaloosa many times, with long stretches of bumpy road that is marred by stop lights as you get closer to the city. All in all it’s about a 70-minute drive, a 70-minute drive residents of Perry County have to make if they need to…
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One Month into Medicaid Work Requirement in Arkansas, Warning Lights are Already Flashing
Arkansas’s Department of Human Services released numbers on its work requirement to a select group of reporters and officials late last Friday, and we just saw them earlier this week. The numbers confirm reports of widespread confusion over the work requirement’s rollout and exacerbate our fears that red tape will eventually lead to significant coverage…
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EPSDT Education for Providers and Advocates
This webinar was hosted by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Georgetown Center for Children and Families, and provides detailed information to the child health community about Medicaid’s Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT) benefit, the comprehensive and guaranteed benefit for all children enrolled in the Medicaid program.
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Public Comments Reflect Strong Opposition to Proposed CMS Medicaid Access Rule
Public comments matter – the recent federal court decision on the Kentucky HEALTH waiver proved that. And they matter not just on Section 1115 waivers; they matter on regulations as well. Under the Administrative Procedures Act, federal agencies have to provide the public with an opportunity to comment on a proposed regulation, and it has…
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School Readiness as an “Essential Quality Metric” for Children: A Hook for Medicaid in Cross-System Work
The importance of a child’s first months and years can’t be overstated. It’s a time of rapid brain development and learning, where relationships and environments set the course for a child’s lifelong trajectory—even shaping the architecture of the brain. In 2016, Medicaid and CHIP served close to half of all children under 6, and more…
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Why Aren’t Arkansas Medicaid Enrollees Reporting Work Verification Data?
NPR By: Jacob Kauffman More than a quarter of the 27,000 Arkansans subject to a new work requirement in order to keep Medicaid coverage did not satisfy the state’s new reporting rules, according to state officials. … Marquita Little, health policy director for Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, says she is concerned that people…
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There’s a Medicaid ‘subsidy cliff’ health-care officials are worried about
The Washington Post By: Colby Itkowitz There’s a significant population of Medicaid recipients who would lose their health-care coverage if states began requiring them to work — regardless of whether they got a job. … Joan Alker, a Georgetown University public-policy professor who is closely following the waiver submissions, told me the state’s two extra years of…
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Medicaid’s Vital Role for Schools and Students
It feels like summer just arrived, but back-to-school time is near! Before the back-to-school bell rings, we wanted to take stock of health coverage for school-age children. As SayAhhh! readers are well aware, Medicaid and CHIP, the primary public health coverage sources for children, have worked together in recent decades to bring the rate…
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Medicaid and CHIP Provide Health Coverage for Many School-Age Children, Yet Gaps Remain
Introduction Children need health coverage to help them stay healthy and ready to learn in the classroom. Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the primary public health coverage sources for children, have worked together in recent decades to bring the rate of uninsured children to historic lows. In 2016, only 4.5 percent of…
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Another View — Tricia Brooks: Citizenship paperwork would turn back NH Medicaid
New Hampshire Union Leader By: Tricia Brooks New Hampshire is proposing to add burdensome paperwork requirements for U.S. citizens to prove eligibility for Medicaid. That’s one of the requests it is making in its Medicaid waiver proposal. This is perplexing because the state and federal governments have spent millions of dollars establishing systems that electronically…
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A Disturbing Trend of Hiding the Coverage Losses is Emerging in Medicaid Waivers
For those of us closely watching the action on new Section 1115 Medicaid research and demonstration waivers that the Trump Administration has been inviting and approving this year, the recent court decision putting a hold on Kentucky’s plans was welcome news. The court ruled that the Secretary’s decision in granting the Medicaid waiver was “arbitrary…
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Trump Administration Encourages States to Seek Waivers to Opt Out of Medicaid Drug Rebate Program
On June 27, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services partially approved Massachusetts’ Medicaid waiver proposal, but among other provisions, rejected a proposal to impose a “closed formulary” for prescription drugs under which the state could entirely exclude coverage of certain drugs in ways not permitted under current law. Instead, CMS expressed openness to approving…
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Medicaid Fraud Is Flying Under Insurers’ Radar
Governing By: Chad Terhune Despite receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer money, Medicaid insurers are lax in ferreting out fraud and neglect to tell states about unscrupulous medical providers, according to a federal report released Thursday. … Andy Schneider, a former federal health official and now a research professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families,…
