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Medicaid

  • 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…

  • Research Update: Medicaid Pulls Americans Out of Poverty, Updated Edition

    Karina Wagnerman

    This week, I am reading studies about Medicaid’s poverty-fighting effects. In 2016, about 13% of the population lived in poverty. Children continue to live disproportionately in poverty: children represent 23% of the population, but 33% of the population living in poverty. Increasing access to Medicaid for families may be one way to reduce poverty. Research…

  • Medicaid Managed Care, Kids, and Quality: What Can Transparency Do?

    Andy Schneider

    Medicaid covers 37 million kids, and most of those get their care through managed care organizations (MCOs).  The large majority of state Medicaid agencies contract with MCOs to organize networks of providers to deliver the services that enrolled children need. How good a job are those MCOs doing? How do we know? And how can…

  • Developmental Screenings for Young Children in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program

    Elisabeth Wright Burak

    Introduction As our nation reaches historic levels of health coverage for children, there is increased interest in further ensuring access to the care needed for children to reach their full potential. Years of research have confirmed the critical importance of the earliest years of a child’s development.[note]See for example, Institute of Medicine. From Neurons to…

  • What do we know about developmental screenings in Medicaid and CHIP?

    Elisabeth Wright Burak

    Those of us in child health policy are familiar with the argument that coverage is important to children to ensure preventive care that can catch and address disease and delays early before they become larger hurdles. But once kids are covered, unpacking how and whether that preventive care is achieved, and defining the steps, policy…

  • Leading Children’s Health, Medical and Advocacy Organizations Object to Work Requirements and Other Barriers to Medicaid Coverage

    Cathy Hope

    A broad and diverse group of children’s health, medical and advocacy organizations are speaking up against adding work requirements and other barriers to Medicaid coverage. Forty-four organizations sent a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar today expressing serious concerns about the agency’s proposed changes to Medicaid’s Section 1115 waiver policy, which could lead to thousands…

  • Research Update: Early Evidence on Medicaid Expansion’s Important Role Fighting Cancer

    Karina Wagnerman

    This week, I am reading studies showing new evidence that the Medicaid expansion is contributing to the fight against cancer. Medical Care’s Changes in Health Insurance Coverage Associated With the Affordable Care Act Among Adults With and Without a Cancer History: Population-based National Estimates The researchers examined coverage changes for adults with and without a…

  • New NHIS Data Show Uninsured Rate for Adults is Twice as High in States that Haven’t Expanded Medicaid

    Adam Searing

    Buried in a report this week by the Division of Health Interview Statistics of the National Center for Health Statistics (part of the federal US Department of Health and Human Services) is an interesting comparison of the uninsured rate between Medicaid expansion states and non-expansion states. In the first nine months of 2017, adults in…

  • New GAO Report on Medicaid Waiver Evaluations Identifies Many Shortcomings

    Joan Alker

    Earlier this week, the GAO released a new report that looks closely at Section 1115 Medicaid demonstration evaluations. The states examined are Arizona, Arkansas, California, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York. The report was requested by Republican Members of Congress from the committees of jurisdiction. The report uncovered a number of problems including that…

  • Show Me Your Budget, and I’ll Tell You What You Value (Hint: It’s Not Medicaid in Schools)

    CCFadmin

    President Trump’s FY19 budget once again seeks to end Medicaid as we know it. The budget embraces a per-capita cap funding proposal frequently referred to as “Graham-Cassidy” that would replace the existing federal-state financial partnership with capped Medicaid funding at a set amount per beneficiary—regardless of the costs to the state. Specifically, the President’s FY19…

  • Administration’s Budget Proposal Includes $1.4 Trillion in Medicaid Cuts

    Andy Schneider

    The Administration today released a budget proposal for the fiscal year that starts on October 1 (FY 2019).  On the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the budget proposal is irrelevant.  The budget proposes to extend CHIP through 2019; as Kelly Whitener explains, the Bipartisan Budget Act signed into law last week extends CHIP through 2027. …

  • Bipartisan Budget Act Funds CHIP for Four More Years and Includes Other Important Health Care Provisions

    Kelly Whitener

    Congress passed another short-term continuing resolution (CR) early this morning after a brief government shutdown. The Bipartisan Budget Act funds the government through March 23, but this one is very different from the previous CRs. One metric of how it’s different is the length – this one comes in at over 650 pages whereas the…

  • Indiana’s Waiver Approval Adds More Barriers to Medicaid Coverage

    Joan Alker

    Following the recent approval of Kentucky’s waiver, Indiana becomes the second major waiver approval by the Trump Administration which establishes more barriers to Medicaid coverage. This is an unfortunate but not surprising turn of events. It’s worth noting that Indiana’s own evaluation shows numerous barriers to coverage already existing in Indiana’s HIP 2.0 program, yet…

  • Medicaid is Critical for Young Children and Their Parents – Time to Tackle Real Barriers to Work Like Affordable Child Care

    Elisabeth Wright Burak

    Last month, I blogged about a helpful new 50-state report by our friends at the Urban Institute that breaks down coverage for children 3 and under and their parents. This week they released an update to this report with 2016 data and even looked at metro area coverage for young children.   The upshot? Again,…