Medicaid
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Trump Administration’s New Medicaid Work Requirement Policy Will Harm Families
Today the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued guidance that radically alters Medicaid by allowing states to link Medicaid eligibility with work requirements. Essentially, the Secretary of Health and Human Services will allow states, using Section 1115 Medicaid demonstration waivers, to condition Medicaid eligibility on compliance with state-determined policies that require non-disabled adults…
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Wisconsin’s Partial Medicaid Expansion Covers Far Fewer People at Much Greater Cost
Among the 19 states that have yet to expand Medicaid to all adults up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, Wisconsin is the only one that covers all adults that are below the poverty level. It’s a policy choice that compares favorably to the 18 other “non-expansion” states; however, Wisconsin’s partial expansion covers…
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Research Update: Health Care Expenses from Families’ Budgets to Federal Budgets
This week, I am reading studies on how health coverage eases financial pressures on families’ budgets and how children fare in federal expenditures. Commonwealth Fund’s What’s at Stake: States’ Progress on Health Coverage and Access to Care, 2013–2016 This brief examines the progress made since the ACA, including increases in health coverage for children and…
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The Tax Bill: Bad News for Marketplaces and Medicaid
The tax bill (H.R. 1, The “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act”) that Congress passed this week is about more than cutting taxes for corporations and high-income individuals, although it is definitely about that. It’s also about cutting health coverage for low-income children and families. The bill’s repeal of the tax penalty for not having health…
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New 50-state Report: Medicaid/CHIP Crucial for Infants and Toddlers and Their Parents
As we wait with bated breath to see whether Congress will pass a long-term CHIP funding extension before the holidays, a timely new report serves as a good reminder of importance of Medicaid and CHIP for our nation’s youngest children and their parents—and the very real possibilities that the gifts of this coverage could be taken…
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Michigan Medicaid Evaluation Has Important Lessons for States Considering Work Requirements
On Monday, a team of researchers from the University of Michigan (who are the official evaluators of the Healthy Michigan Plan) published a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on the employment status of the adult Medicaid expansion population in Michigan. In a survey of 4,090 expansion adults, researchers found that…
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Tracking Medicaid Work Requirement Proposals
We here at Georgetown University CCF are closely tracking Medicaid Section 1115 demonstration waiver proposals as states attempt to create new barriers to coverage. There are many troubling proposals pending, but one of the most common is the imposition of a work or community service requirement as a condition of Medicaid coverage. As a reference,…
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Research Update: Checking Up on Health Care Utilization and Providers After the ACA’s Medicaid Expansion
This week, I am checking up on Medicaid research regarding health care utilization and providers. There is evidence that the expansion increased access and utilization of health care, led to an increase in smoking cessation, and increased the share of patients that physicians saw covered through Medicaid. Health Services Research’s Impact of Recent Medicaid Expansions…
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Research: Medicaid Expansions Help Parents, Children and Families Get Coverage, Afford Care, Reduce Debt
Recently Seema Verma, the Trump Administration’s director of Medicare and Medicaid, said that Medicaid provides “a card without care.” This line echoes state critics of Medicaid like Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin who recently said: “One of the most remarkable lies that has perpetrated in recent years in the healthcare community in America is that expanded…
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Medicaid and Work: How the CMS Administrator Has it Completely Upside Down
Work has a lot going for it. It allows people to support themselves and their families, it is a source of self-esteem, and — in a safe and non-predatory workplace — it is good for one’s health and well-being. In fact, encouraging work is one of the reasons that the Medicaid program is so important…
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Kansas and Mississippi Medicaid Waivers Race to the Bottom: Most Vulnerable Families Targeted by Harmful Proposal
Medicaid is a critical part of health insurance coverage in the US, covering millions of children and their parents, seniors and individuals with disabilities. More than half of states have taken the Affordable Care Act option to expand Medicaid coverage to more low-income parents and childless adults. But some states are trying to move in…
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Want kids to get preventive health care? Make sure their parents have health coverage.
If we’ve learned anything this year, it’s that we can’t take success covering children for granted. A lapse in CHIP funding (ahem!) or cuts to Medicaid could easily put our nation back in a place where rates of uninsured kids reverse course. But even as we work to keep the coverage we have, we also…
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This Thanksgiving I Am Grateful For My Child’s Health Insurance
It has been a long year here in Washington with many threats, twists, and turns for those who rely on publicly funded health coverage for their families – that is 40 percent of all children in the United States. In my role here at the Center for Children and Families, I often speak with reporters…
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Turning Back the Clock on Medicaid Would Undo Progress Nation Has Achieved in Reducing Uninsured Rate
Last week, CMS Administrator Seema Verma gave a major policy address to the National Association of Medicaid Directors. She made two things crystal clear. First, she cares about protecting “deserving” Americans: “…our safety net should be stronger to ensure that no deserving Americans fall through the cracks.” Second, she does not believe that the Medicaid…
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Research Update: Medicaid Pulls Americans Out Of Poverty
This week, I am reading a study on one of my favorite topics: the poverty rate. In 2016, about 13% of the population lived in poverty. When broken out by age, children continue to have the highest poverty rate (18% under age 18, 12% ages 18 to 64, and 9% 65 and over). Children represent…
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New Research: Medicaid Expansions Increase Coverage More in Rural Areas than in Urban Areas
Rural areas and small towns across America have special problems accessing health care. Our colleagues at the University of North Carolina’s Rural Health Program have tracked the increasing numbers of rural hospital closures around the country. The Rural Health Information Hub is also a great resource on the opportunities and challenges for rural health delivery…
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Report: Children in Rural Communities More Likely to Rely on CHIP and Medicaid
The challenges that students face in many rural places are staggering. Limited access to advanced coursework, medical care, food, and employment opportunities continue to daunt students in many rural communities. Poverty rates are also climbing. In 23 states, a majority of rural students live in low-income households; this is a noticeable uptick from 2013 when…
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Trump Administration’s New Medicaid Waiver Policy Will Increase Number of Uninsured: Kentucky Likely to be First Approved
I was in Kentucky last week where I spoke to an audience of health care providers and advocates about the success of the state’s Medicaid expansion and the giant step backwards its pending waiver proposal would be. I was relieved that the state’s pending waiver proposal wasn’t approved while I was there as my trip…
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Research Update: Affordability and Economic Security Thanks to Medicaid
CCF’s last research update focused on families’ increase in economic security after the Medicaid expansion. This week, I would like to build on the research presented last time. Below are two additional studies that examine links between affordable, comprehensive health care and financial security. And of course, the role of Medicaid in it all. Health…
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CMS Administrator’s Proposed Changes to Medicaid: Reprehensible
Earlier this week, the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Seema Verma, gave a major policy address to the National Association of Medicaid Directors. After invoking Hubert Humphrey on the moral tests of government – her office is in the Humphrey building — she characterized expanding Medicaid coverage to uninsured adults without…
