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Medicaid

  • Protecting and Promoting Medicaid’s Guaranteed Benefits for Children: Illinois EPSDT and Managed Care

    Tricia Brooks

    Introduction In 2017, the Sargent Shriver National Center on Law Poverty and Everthrive Illinois engaged in activities to protect and strengthen Medicaid’s comprehensive and preventive pediatric benefits as more children were enrolled into Managed Care Plans (MCOs). This work was supported by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families through a grant from the…

  • Melanie’s Story: A New Sense of Normal

    Cathy Hope

    Previously, Austin shared the story of bringing baby girl Melanie into her family’s life, and how TRICARE and Medicaid helped cover her child’s complex medical needs. Today, this amazing mom shares more about Melanie’s medical journey, and how, inspired by their youngest, this family became health care policy advocates. This blog was originally published by…

  • Melanie’s Story: Adopted by an Army Family Who Meets Her Complex Medical Needs

    Cathy Hope

    In honor of the “Month of the Military Child”, Speak Now for Kids published this story to help readers learn how military families like the Carriggs meet the health care needs of their children with complex medical conditions. This is the first blog post of a two part series by Austin Carrigg, the mother of three…

  • How to Reduce Improper Payments in Medicaid

    Andy Schneider

    It turns out that government programs make mistakes.  Who knew? If you’re the federal government, you try to identify the mistakes your programs are making and correct them.  That’s exactly what the federal government does with its large domestic programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP. Each year, in each of these programs, it measures and…

  • Medicaid Proves to be a Winning Topic in this Year’s Pulitzer Prize Contest

    Maggie Clark

    Stories about Medicaid earned top honors in this year’s Pulitzer Prize contest: editorial writer Andie Dominick from the Des Moines Register earned a top prize for her columns on the consequences of Iowa’s transition to Medicaid managed care, and health journalist Andy Marso won a finalist mention for his coverage of the lack of transparency in…

  • President Trump’s Executive Order Focuses on Reducing Poverty but Many Administration Policies Run Counter to that Goal

    Joan Alker

    The President issued an executive order yesterday titled “Reducing Poverty in America by Promoting Opportunity and Economic Mobility”. It requires the Secretaries of Treasury, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, HHS, HUD, Transportation and Education to review all regulations and guidance to ensure they are in compliance with the executive order and submit a list of recommended regulatory…

  • Proposed Medicaid Work Requirement: Impact on Mississippi’s Low-Income Families

    Joan Alker

    (Updated August 3, 2018) Introduction Mississippi has joined a handful of states seeking federal permission to require parents and caregivers who qualify for Medicaid to prove they are working at least 20 hours a week or participating in an approved work activity before receiving health coverage. Called the “Mississippi Workforce Training Initiative,” the application for…

  • Trump Administration Medicaid Drug Rebate Proposal Raises Serious Concerns for Beneficiaries, Unlikely to Reduce Costs

    Edwin Park

    As part of its fiscal year 2019 budget, the Trump Administration included a proposal to provide legislative authority for a new demonstration project for up to five states to opt out of the Medicaid drug rebate program, negotiate their own rebates from drug manufacturers and impose “closed” drug formularies for beneficiaries.  Such a proposal raises…

  • “Rolling Back” the Medicaid Access Rule: Don’t Ask, Don’t Know

    Andy Schneider

    Last November, the CMS Administrator, Seema Verma, promised the National Association of Medicaid Directors she would “rollback” her agency’s regulations on access to care and managed care. It was clear she didn’t like the regulations—she called them “burdensome,” a concern she does not have when it comes to beneficiaries who will be overwhelmed by work…

  • VIDEO: Charlie and Rebecca Wood Share Their Story on Why Medicaid Matters So Much to Medically Fragile Children

    Adam Searing

    I met Charlie and Rebecca Wood of Virginia recently. We were able to help them create a short video to explain how important Medicaid is to Charlie and her family. I wrote about some amazing families like the Woods last summer and our colleague Marta Conner wrote about her daughter and the importance of Medicaid to her family as well. …

  • Medicaid and CHIP Eligibility, Enrollment, Renewal, and Cost Sharing Policies as of January 2018: Findings from a 50-State Survey

    Tricia Brooks

    Executive Summary This 16th annual 50-state survey provides data on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) eligibility, enrollment, renewal and cost sharing policies as of January 2018. It takes stock of how the programs have evolved as the fifth year of implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) begins, discusses policy changes made…

  • Kaiser Health Tracking Poll Finds 74% View Medicaid Favorably

    Karina Wagnerman

    The latest Kaiser health tracking poll found that roughly three-quarters of the public hold favorable views of Medicaid. The results do not vary drastically by political party. The poll also found that seven in ten Americans say they have ever had a connection to Medicaid, either through their own coverage, their child’s coverage, or indirectly…

  • Alabama Mothers and Children Will Bear the Brunt of Proposed Medicaid Restrictions

    Joan Alker

    As regular readers of SayAhhh! know, on January 11th CMS released guidance announcing its interest in approving state proposals to impose work requirements on Medicaid beneficiaries. Since then CMS has approved three waivers to do so (along with other important and harmful changes such as lockouts which we are not talking about today) – Kentucky,…

  • The Impact of Alabama’s Proposed Medicaid Work Requirement on Low-Income Families with Children

    Joan Alker

    (Updated August 23, 2018) What is Alabama proposing to do? Alabama is seeking federal permission through a Section 1115 Medicaid demonstration waiver to require parents and caregivers who rely on Medicaid to work 20 to 35 hours a week, prove they are looking or training for a job or do community service before receiving Medicaid.…

  • Ensuring Robust and Resilient Medicaid Programs in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands During Post-Hurricane Recovery and Over the Long Run

    Edwin Park

    On February 9th, Congress enacted the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, which included temporary financial assistance critically needed by the Medicaid programs of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands as the islands struggle to recover from the devastation of Hurricanes Maria and Irma.  But Congress should also consider permanent Medicaid financing changes to sustain…

  • Gutting Medicaid Transitional Medical Assistance: Watch What We Waive, Not What We Say

    Andy Schneider

    For over 30 years, Medicaid has encouraged work by parents, persons with disabilities, and others. You sure wouldn’t know it from the CMS Administrator’s repeated calls for “community engagement” by the “able bodied.”   But there it is, in plain view: section 1925 of the Social Security Act, Transitional Medical Assistance (TMA). TMA was designed to…

  • How Can Schools Leverage Medicaid to Meet Needs of Most Vulnerable Students?

    Phyllis Jordan

    When the federal government lifted its restrictions in 2014 on the services that schools could charge to Medicaid, education and health leaders saw an opportunity to provide better care for the most vulnerable students. Rather than opening the floodgates to new reimbursements, though, the lifting of the “free care rule” has left many states engaged…

  • New National Health Expenditure Projections Contain Several Key Findings Relevant to Medicaid 

    Edwin Park

    New National Health Expenditure (NHE) projections recently issued by the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services included several key findings related to the Medicaid program: Aging of the population. In its new NHE projections, the CMS actuaries unsurprisingly find that the aging of the baby boom generation is “anticipated…

  • Medicaid Remains Popular Despite Efforts to Stigmatize the Program

    Andy Schneider

    Last week, the Kaiser Family Foundation released its February tracking poll. The results? Three quarters of respondents had a “very favorable” (40%) or “somewhat favorable” (34%) opinion of Medicaid. Over half of respondents (52%) said that the Medicaid program is working well for most low-income Americans covered by the program. On Monday, someone who has…