Medicaid
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HHS Listens to Public, Sticks to Principles & Rejects Ohio Medicaid Waiver
The public spoke and HHS listened. That is my takeaway from today’s rejection of the state of Ohio’s Medicaid Section 1115 waiver proposal that would have created more barriers to needed health care for Medicaid beneficiaries and result in more uninsured Ohioans. Governor Kasich has staunchly defended Ohio’s Medicaid expansion which has contributed to a…
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Quality Provisions of the Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care Rules
Thanks to a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, CCF has teamed up with NHeLP to launch a series of explainer briefs that unpack the new Medicaid/Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) managed care regulations. Three briefs in the series have been released already: Looking at the New Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care Regulations Through a Children’s Lens, Medicaid/CHIP…
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Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care Regulations: Assuring Quality
While the rules governing Medicaid/CHIP managed care remained unchanged for more than a decade, significant advances have been made in assessing quality, access, and timeliness of care in health coverage programs. During this time, there has been a growing recognition of the need to ensure that the care delivered through capitated managed care arrangements is…
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It’s Time to Comment on Your State’s Access Plan
September is here and as our kids go back to school, it’s time for us to work even harder to make sure they are getting the health care they need to show up to school ready to learn. Say Ahhh! readers will remember that CMS finalized the long-awaited Medicaid access rule last fall, requiring states…
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Kentucky Submits Proposed Medicaid Waiver
A couple months ago, Kentucky released the first version of its proposed Medicaid waiver for public comment and we pointed out several major problems with the proposal. Basically, the proposal contained elements like very high premiums and very high copayments, lockout periods where people would be denied health coverage and work (or involuntary “volunteer”) requirements:…
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Report Recommends a New Child-Centered Approach to Value-Based Payment in Medicaid
By Kate Breslin, Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy and Andrea G. Cohen, United Hospital Fund As part of its Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) waiver, New York Medicaid has set an ambitious goal to rapidly implement value-based payment across 80 percent of managed care payments by 2020. For all of the challenges associated with this huge…
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New Florida Legal Services Report Examines Financial Challenges to Health Care System
By Miriam Harmatz, Florida Legal Services My colleague, Charlotte Cassel, and I spend a lot of time explaining changes to Florida’s major supplemental payment program, the Low Income Pool (LIP) and how those changes impact individual counties. FLS Reports. Before we started this endeavor, I pulled out notes from training by iconic poverty and health…
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School-Based Outreach for Health Coverage Enrollment: New Guide Highlights Successful Strategies
By Shelby Gonzalez, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Across the country, children are stocking up on school supplies and teachers are preparing their classrooms and lesson plans. In addition to these traditional back-to-school activities, many school administrators and outreach groups are gearing up to raise awareness about the importance of health insurance and help…
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How One Florida Newspaper Went Beyond Reporting to Spur Original Research
(This blog was originally published by the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism.) By Maggie Clark, Sarasota Herald Tribune Some of the best ideas are the ones that initially sound the craziest. I was about four months in on my reporting on Florida’s Medicaid managed care program, and I was hitting a wall. I’d been…
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The Future of Children’s Health Coverage
(Updated August 2021) The Affordable Care Act, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program have made historic progress in reducing the child uninsured rate. Yet some families continue to have difficulty affording coverage and getting their children the care they need. In June of 2016, the Center for Children and Families launched a series of…
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How the New Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care Regulations Seek to Improve Network Adequacy and Access to Services
Thanks to a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, CCF has teamed up with NHeLP to launch a series of explainer briefs that unpack the new Medicaid/CHIP managed care regulations. Three briefs in the series have been released already: Looking at the New Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care Regulations Through a Children’s Lens, Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care…
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Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care Regulations: Network Adequacy and Access to Services
Georgetown University Center for Children and Families (CCF) and the National Health Law Program (NHeLP) have teamed up to bring advocates for children and low-income families critical information about the recently finalized Medicaid and CHIP managed care regulations. This paper is the fourth in the series, and it describes how the new rules assure network…
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CMS Turns Down Indiana Request to Lock People Out of Health Coverage Who Don’t Complete Renewal Process
While we at CCF were wrapping up our annual conference on Friday, CMS sent a letter to Governor Pence’s office turning down a request by the state to amend their Medicaid Section 1115 HIP 2.0 waiver in two ways that would have been harmful to beneficiaries. The first issue is especially of interest as we…
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Tax Policy, Budget Cuts Pose Health Risk to Kansas Children
By Amanda Gress, Kansas Action for Children Kansas policymakers’ refusal to revisit deep income tax cuts has once again harmed the health of Kansas children. In May, Governor Brownback announced a 4% reduction in reimbursement rates for KanCare, the state’s managed-care Medicaid program. These choices will ultimately make it more difficult for Kansas children covered…
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Recommended Changes to the 2017 Child Core Set of Health Care Quality Measures
As I noted in a blog last year, CMS reviews the Child Core Set of Health Care Quality Measures annually. Advising CMS’ quality activities is the Measure Applications Partnership (MAP), a public-private partnership convened by the National Quality Forum (NQF), a not-for-profit, nonpartisan, membership-based organization that works to catalyze improvements in health care. MAP is…
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Medicaid Expansion Helps Kids by Helping Moms Get Care for Maternal Depression
By Joan Alker and Olivia Golden Today, CLASP and the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families (CCF) are releasing a new report on the important but often-overlooked link between adult health care coverage and children’s healthy development – specifically, the connection between health care coverage and identifying and treating maternal depression, so that children…
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Medicaid Expansion Promotes Children’s Development and Family Success by Treating Maternal Depression
This paper examines one important reason why access to Medicaid for poor adults is crucial for children’s healthy development. Other research has documented the reasons why Medicaid coverage matters so much for uninsured adults, both parents and non-parents: It reduces the rate of uninsurance, allows them to get treatment for medical and mental health problems, and stabilizes family finances.…
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How the New Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care Regulations Enhance the Beneficiary Experience
Thanks to a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, CCF has teamed with NHeLP to launch a series of explainer briefs to unpack the new Medicaid/CHIP managed care regulations. Two briefs in the series have been released: Looking at the New Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care Regulations Through a Children’s Lens and Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care Rules: Improving Consumer…
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Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care Regulations: Enhancing the Beneficiary Experience
As managed care and particularly mandatory managed care programs have become the predominant model for delivering care in Medicaid, there has been a growing recognition of the need to provide potential enrollees with accurate and timely information about their managed care options, to enable and encourage an active choice of plans, and to ensure that…
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Incentivizing Healthy Behaviors: Kentucky is Latest State to Pursue Despite Evidence it Doesn’t Work
Some ideas just keep popping up despite the near certainty that they won’t work. The recent Medicaid waiver proposal from Governor Bevin of Kentucky emphasizes the use of a rewards account where beneficiaries get points by engaging in healthy behaviors or community engagement activities to help pay for vision and dental care. This idea has…
