Medicaid
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The AHCA Will Kill Jobs and Chill Economic Growth
The ongoing political debate over repealing the Affordable Care Act keeps me scratching my head on many fronts, one of which is the overwhelming body of evidence that the proposed replacement will cause real people to lose real jobs. The latest report on to catch my attention was an economic and employment analysis by the Commonwealth…
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States at Risk = Children and Families at Risk
It is a truth universally acknowledged that states don’t get sick, people get sick. But in a program like Medicaid, where the federal government and the states share in the cost of medical and long-term care services that people need, the fiscal fortunes of states and the health of beneficiaries are inextricably linked. If the…
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Which Parents Would Still be Covered if Medicaid Expansion Goes Away?
Given discussions in Congress to eliminate the Medicaid expansion over time, the question has arisen as to which parents would still be covered if expansion went away. In the first year of ACA implementation, expansion states accounted for the majority of the estimated 1.1 million parents who gained coverage. And, in 2015, the uninsurance rate…
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New Analysis Finds Uninsured Rate for Kids Would Increase by 50% Under AHCA
If the Affordable Health Care Act (AHCA) becomes law, the uninsured rate for children would increase by a whopping 50% by 2026 according to a new analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The Center’s report is based on a deeper dive into the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the AHCA that was passed by…
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CMS Does Not Appear to Be Honoring Public Comment Requirement on Indiana Medicaid Waiver Request
My top-notch intern is checking the CMS website every day, and it looks like Friday June 9th, after regular business hours, federal CMS did two things with respect to Indiana’s desire to impose a work requirement on certain Medicaid beneficiaries and make other changes to their Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP) 2.0 program. First, CMS certified the application…
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The Risk of Letting Politicians, Not Pediatricians, Determine Children’s Health Care
Fifty years ago, after learning that half the young men drafted for the Vietnam War failed baseline health exams, the federal government instituted Medicaid’s comprehensive, pediatrician-recommended benefit standard for children known as Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment (EPSDT). The federal benefit standard in Medicaid ensures that low-income and vulnerable children receive the health care services…
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Connecting the Dots: Capping Medicaid, Closing Rural Hospitals, and Stranding Rural Children and Families
The Senate was designed by our founding fathers to protect less populated states. Few would dispute that over the decades, the Senate has faithfully executed that institutional mission, especially when it comes to health policy. So it is completely mystifying that the Senate, according to all reports, is seriously considering capping federal Medicaid payments to…
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At Risk: Medicaid’s Child-Focused Benefit Structure Known as EPSDT
The federal benefit standard in Medicaid ensures that low-income and vulnerable children receive the health care services they need to grow and thrive. But this standard is at risk. Proposed cuts to Medicaid and CHIP funding could make EPSDT unaffordable to states, and in turn, proposed changes to federal policy, including legislative and administrative action, could potentially…
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Medicaid is Increasingly Important for Kids and Families in Small Towns and Rural Communities
Since we started doing our annual report on uninsured children six years ago, the slightly higher overall rate for children living in rural areas has caught my eye. As a researcher, I always want to learn more about the populations that have higher uninsured rates. This year, with funding from the Pritzker Children’s Initiative, my…
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Rural Health Report: Medicaid is a Lifeline for Small Towns and Rural Communities
Medicaid is a vital source of health coverage nationwide, but the program’s role is even more pronounced in small towns and rural areas. Medicaid covers a larger share of nonelderly adults and children in rural and small-town areas than in metropolitan areas; this trend is strongest among children. Demographic factors have an impact on this…
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Public Firmly Opposed to Cutting Medicaid
The respected Kaiser Family Foundation health tracking poll released today confirms what we’ve been saying here at CCF for years – Medicaid is an extremely popular program that is a critical part of our health system. I recently detailed how Medicaid’s increasing importance to Americans has had a noticeable effect on health policy debates. Now…
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How Many Will Be Impacted By Work Requirements: Indiana Gives Us The First Clue
As has been widely reported, there are a number of states seeking Section 1115 waivers to establish work requirements for their Medicaid expansion populations – and the Trump Administration has indicated that they are likely to say yes. In just the last week Arkansas and Indiana opened public comment periods at the state level for…
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It is Complicated. A Child’s View Can Guide Us.
By Rylin Rodgers, Riley Child Development Center Too often policy discussions and budget debates are framed in terms of winners and losers at the program, department, or budget line level. Families raising children who have health care needs and disabilities are impacted every day by public policy, systems, and services related to health care, education, housing,…
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No Doubt About It: Medicaid Capped, Uninsured Increased, and Taxes Cut
Yesterday the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) released their estimate of the House bill to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Senate, and seemingly much of Western Civilization, has been on CBO/JCT watch since the House of Representatives narrowly passed the bill on May 4 with…
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Trump’s Proposed Budget Would Repeal the Maintenance of Effort Provision
The President’s FY 2018 budget, released yesterday, proposed repealing the maintenance of effort (MOE) provision as of October 1, 2017. As readers of Say Ahhh! already know, the MOE has been critical to maintaining stability for children’s coverage – and even improving coverage levels – while the rest of the health care system in the…
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Fact Sheet: The Maintenance of Effort (MOE) Provision in the Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) included a “maintenance of effort” (MOE) provision that has ensured stability of coverage for children in Medicaid and CHIP, even as the rest of the U.S. healthcare system has seen significant change. The MOE—along with coverage expansions for parents and other adults in Medicaid and the Marketplaces – has helped…
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Trump Budget Poses Even More Threats to Children’s Health
Today President Trump’s budget came out and the news for children’s health coverage is devastating. In addition to assuming the enormous cuts and dangerous changes to Medicaid included in the House passed American Health Care Act (that we have blogged about many times), the President is proposing even larger cuts to Medicaid and is proposing…
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Capping Medicaid: Bad News for All
As readers of SayAhhh! know, the House bill to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act does far more than effectively end the expansion of Medicaid for low-income adults. It also radically disrupts the 50-year old Medicaid partnership between the federal government and the states by capping federal payments to the states for covering all…
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Impact of Medicaid Per-Capita Cap Cuts Underestimated by Many
The American Health Care Act, passed by the House and now currently being considered by the Senate, significantly cuts Medicaid in two ways. First, the AHCA rolls back the expansion of Medicaid to adults with incomes below $16,643 (138% FPL). Second, the AHCA institutes a “per-capita cap” or limit on how much the federal government…
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Further Evidence that Medicaid and CHIP Have Played Significant Role in Nation’s Success in Covering Children
Efforts to connect kids to coverage over the past decade were accelerated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and are paying off big! A new report by the Urban Institute shows that the number of uninsured children who were eligible but not enrolled in Medicaid fell by 40% in just two years between 2013 and…
