Medicaid
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Maine Voters Voice Strong Support for Medicaid Expansion
Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, recently criticized the Medicaid program’s expansion under the Affordable Care Act in sharp terms: “We’ve put more than 10 million people, 12 million people into this program where the doctors won’t see them, and the policies that are in the Medicaid program are…
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Reporting on FY 2016 Child Core Set Includes Key Developmental Screening Measure
State voluntary reporting for FY 2016 of the Child Core Set of Health Care Quality Measures is now available on Medicaid.gov. As it has done for the past two cycles, CMS provides a helpful downloadable dataset of state reporting. Fifty states reported at least one measure, with 45 reporting at least half of the 26…
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Work Requirements in Medicaid Would Add More Red-Tape and Barriers to Health Coverage
Having failed to cut Medicaid through legislation, the Trump Administration is moving forward with administrative actions that would permit states to impose roadblocks to enrollment. We anticipate that the administration may soon grant waivers that would for the first time allow work requirements in Medicaid, modeled off of similar federal provisions in Temporary Assistance for…
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Research Update: Economic Security After the Medicaid Expansion
Readers of Say Ahhh! know that Medicaid coverage increases economic security for families. This week, I am reading studies specifically on the Medicaid expansion and how it contributes to economic security. The expansion is only a few years old; the data and the research are still in their beginning stages. Still, this new and expanding…
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Kaiser Family Foundation 50-State Budget Survey Provides Insight Into Medicaid Trends
The Kaiser Family Foundation’s annual 50-state budget survey is here! This year, they’ve captured the findings in three reports – Medicaid Enrollment & Spending Growth: FY 2017 & 2018, providing an analysis of national trends in Medicaid enrollment and spending; Medicaid Moving Ahead in Uncertain Times, taking a more detailed look at the policy and…
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Nationwide Rate of Uninsured Children Reaches Historic Low
Nationwide 95.5 percent of children had health insurance in 2016, up from 95.2 percent the previous year—and up from 92.9 percent in 2013, the year before the ACA was fully implemented. While relatively few children rely on the ACA’s Marketplace for insurance, many gained coverage in Medicaid or CHIP when their parents signed up for…
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Research Update: Health Care in Rural and Urban America
CCF is starting a new series on research in health policy. I will regularly highlight some of the new research that I have been reading. This week, I am reading studies comparing health care and poverty in rural and urban parts of the country. AHRQ’s National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report: Chartbook on Rural Health…
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New York Advocates Explore What Children Need in “First 1,000 Days”
In August, New York State convened a “First 1,000 Days” on Medicaid initiative, to generate recommendations to improve health for young children covered by Medicaid – with explicit interest in outcomes that are long-term and cross-sector, extending beyond health and medical issues. I am helping to lead this effort, which involves dozens of leaders and…
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Section 1115 Medicaid Waiver Comments
Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families contributes an independent perspective to the public dialogue on the future of Medicaid through the lens of children and their families.
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The Medicaid Expansion is Good for Parents AND Good for Children
Parents and children are more likely to have health coverage now than they were before the Affordable Care Act took effect. The Urban Institute released new research that shows the rate of insurance coverage for parents and children increased significantly between June/September 2013 and March 2017. During the time period, the rate of coverage increased…
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Governor LePage’s Medicaid Proposal Would Harm Low-Income Mainers
Governor Paul LePage’s proposal for harsh changes in the state’s Medicaid program, known as MaineCare, would restrict access to health care for many low-income Mainers. Maine is one of 19 states that haven’t adopted the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) Medicaid expansion, leaving most poor adults without a coverage option. The governor’s proposal would make it…
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Cutting Medicaid Unpopular Among Republicans, Democrats and Independents
I’ve written before about how popular the Medicaid program has become and how firmly opposed the public is to cutting Medicaid. One unanticipated outcome of the last two months of debate on in Congress around bills that would have cut Medicaid substantially in the process of “repealing” the Affordable Care Act has been the willingness…
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Graham-Cassidy: A Triple Whammy for Children and Families
When Senators Graham (R-SC) and Cassidy (R-LA) released their proposal to “repeal and replace” the ACA, we had our doubts about just how helpful it would be for children and families, but wanted to wait for the official word from CBO. Now we know. CBO has issued a “Preliminary Analysis” that leaves no doubt that…
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Medicaid Expansion Enrollees Drive Down the Uninsured Rate, Cost Less to Cover
The Medicaid expansion has been particularly successful at covering uninsured adults. According to new research in Health Affairs that used data from the Health Reform Monitoring Survey, expansion states saw a decrease in their rate of uninsured adults from about 16% during the third quarter of 2013 to 7% in the first quarter of 2017.…
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Florida Makes Significant Progress on Children’s Health Coverage But It is at Risk
Our latest brief looks how Florida has cut its rate of uninsured children by more than half since 2009. The rate dropped from 14.8 percent to 6.2 percent in 2016, an all-time low. In raw numbers, that means the state went from having 601,000 uninsured kids to 257,000. Much of that progress can be attributed…
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Graham-Cassidy Would Unravel Innovative and Smart Investments in Young Children
As we celebrate the good news of the highest health coverage levels on record for children, the latest ACA repeal effort in Congress once again threatens to destabilize the foundation of coverage for our nation’s children. We’ve written before about the ways that structural changes to Medicaid through block grants or caps will harm young…
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The Medicaid Cap: Still a Terrible Idea for Children and Families
The Senate Majority Leader has announced his intention to take up the Graham-Cassidy proposal next week. The proposal has lots of moving parts. None of them are kid- or family-friendly. And one of them—the cap on federal Medicaid payments to states—is not only very unfriendly, but it will last forever. The cap first emerged in…
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Medicaid Caps Put Children at Risk
Some recent health policy proposals have included converting Medicaid into a block grant and cutting funding levels. Policymakers that support these proposals are citing the success of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), funded by a block grant, as justification for the idea. In this analysis, CCF researchers review the role of Medicaid and CHIP in…
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Children Would Fall Through Cracks if Graham-Cassidy Becomes Law
There’s much ado in the news today about what the “Graham-Cassidy” plan does with respect to CHIP. Two impacts of Graham-Cassidy on CHIP are very clear. First, by cutting Medicaid, Graham-Cassidy would undermine the foundation upon which CHIP sits. Medicaid covers four times as many children as CHIP, so cutting Medicaid by imposing a per-capita…
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Jimmy Kimmel Calls Out Graham-Cassidy for Failing to Protect Kids with Pre-Existing Conditions
It’s déjà vu in D.C. as the Senate tries again to pass a ACA repeal and gut Medicaid through Graham-Cassidy—a bill that’s arguably worse for kids, families, and states than previous attempts. Even as many have tired of the whiplash, it cannot be understated that this new threat is as serious as those over the…
