Medicaid
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Florida’s Medicaid Managed Care Program Has Considerable Room for Improvement
I’m here in Sarasota, Florida today to release our new study looking at the quality of care for the approximately two million kids receiving health care services through Florida’s Medicaid managed care program. The study was commissioned by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and supported by the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. We appreciate their wonderful partnership on…
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How Is Florida’s Medicaid Managed Care Working for Children?
How is Florida’s Medicaid managed care working for children? To answer this question, we looked at existing data sources and also conducted a survey of pediatricians in Florida. Our results suggest there is considerable room for improvement in Medicaid managed care for Florida’s children.
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Infant-Early Childhood Mental Health Matters
By Cindy Oser, ZERO TO THREE Last month, ZERO TO THREE and Manatt Health produced a policy brief and webinar highlighting the steps states should take to ensure resources to support infant and early childhood mental health (I-ECMH) are in place and working. Why? Because early investments in mental health will yield big outcomes for…
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Beyond the Reduction in Uncompensated Care: Medicaid Expansion Is Having a Positive Impact on Safety Net Hospitals and Clinics
More than two years after the onset of expanded Medicaid coverage, significant differences are emerging between states that opted to expand Medicaid and those that did not. This report contains the findings of telephone interviews with eleven leaders of hospital systems and federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) in seven states. Three of the states where we conducted interviews…
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Six States Hold the Key to Reaching Nearly Half of the Uninsured Kids Who Are Eligible for Medicaid/CHIP
By Genevieve M. Kenney, Jennifer Haley, Clare Pan, Victoria Lynch, and Matthew Buettgens, Urban Institute, Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation We recently examined how children’s coverage fared during the first year of implementation of the major coverage provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We found increases in participation in Medicaid and the Children’s…
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New CCF Report: Improving Marketplace Coverage for Children
By Sean Miskell and Kelly Whitener The Marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have played an important role in expanding access to health insurance. Though relatively few children (approximately one million) receive their coverage through the Marketplace compared with Medicaid and CHIP, it is nonetheless an important option for children not eligible for…
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New CMS Guidance Highlights Policy Options for Screening and Treating Maternal Depression
By Stephanie Schmit and Christina Walker, Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released an Informational Bulletin (IB) highlighting the critical role Medicaid can play in supporting state policy choices to promote young children’s healthy development through maternal depression screening and treatment. The guidance in the…
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Understanding ACA’s Coverage Gains: Welcome Mat Effect & State Marketplaces Keys to Success
By Molly Frean and Benjamin D. Sommers, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health & Jonathan Gruber, Massachusetts Institute of Technology One of the primary goals of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was to reduce the number of individuals without health insurance in the United States. Prior to the passage of the legislation, this group…
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How Does Florida Perform on the Quality of Health Care for Children Enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP?
Since 2011, the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released an “Annual Report on the Quality of Care for Children in Medicaid and CHIP.” The report includes data submitted by the states on the Child Core Set of Health Care Quality Measures (child core set) and summarizes the results of the…
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Taking Stock of the Impact of Post-ACA Health Coverage in Ohio
Amy Rohling McGee, Health Policy Institute of Ohio The uninsured rate for working-age Ohioans has dropped by more than half since 2010, primarily because the state decided to expand Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act. Prior to Jan. 1, 2014, adults without dependent children were not eligible for Medicaid coverage in Ohio. Parents with incomes…
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New Georgetown Report: Understanding the Consumer Enrollment Experience in the Affordable Care Act Marketplaces
Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms released a report this week, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, that provides new insights into the many challenges facing consumers and those tasked with assisting them when enrolling into coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces. The findings can help policymakers better understand the kinds of systemic…
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New Study Confirms that ACA Welcome Mat for Kids was Indeed Welcoming
My favorite study from our wonderful colleagues at the Urban Institute has just been released, and it underscores that the sharp reduction in the uninsured rate for children was closely linked to the ACA. The study, like others before it (including our own) documents the decline in the number of uninsured children to historic lows…
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Texas Put on Notice as Medicaid Waiver Extended by Federal CMS for 15 Months
Earlier this week, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sent a letter to the state of Texas extending the state’s Section 1115 Medicaid waiver for 15 months with level funding through the end of 2017. The state of Texas promptly labelled the agreement a “big win” for Texas – but was it? Texas…
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Recent Changes to the Free Care Rule Put Federal Funds Back on the Table
The so-called “Free Care Rule” prevented states from receiving federal Medicaid funds to provide any service that is ordinarily provided for free to the community at large, even if Medicaid would cover these services for its beneficiaries. For instance, if a public school nurse were to examine a student, federal funds could not be used…
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HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY: Health Milestones that All Parents and Our Nation Should Celebrate
By Liane Wong, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation Just over a week ago, data released from the Urban Institute gave all parents a milestone to celebrate. Since 1997, the share of uninsured children declined by 75% and for the first time in history, 95 percent of the nation’s children have health insurance. For our…
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Covered California Raises the Bar on Reducing Health Disparities
By Cary Sanders, California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, and Mike Odeh, Children Now At Covered California’s latest April Board meeting, Executive Director Peter Lee declared: “We are raising the bar not just for California but for the nation.” Mr. Lee was referring to the bold initiatives adopted by the Covered California board that they expect will…
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Major New Rule Seeks to Modernize & Improve Quality of Medicaid Managed Care
Earlier this week, CMS released the much-anticipated final rule on Medicaid and CHIP managed care. The rule marks the first update to Medicaid managed care rules in over a decade, and it comes at a time when more and more Medicaid beneficiaries are covered under managed care arrangements. Three-quarters of children, and virtually all adults…
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New Study Shows Medicaid Expansion Reduces Household Debt
Medicaid expansion has led to declines in the rate of uninsurance, improved access to care for enrollees, and financial savings for states. A new study points to an additional benefit to newly eligible Medicaid enrollees: lowering debt. Prior studies indicate that Medicaid reduces medical debt, but a new study examined the impact of Medicaid expansion…
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CMS Releases Final Managed Care Rule for Medicaid, CHIP
Many children and families rely on Medicaid or CHIP as their source of health care coverage and a growing number of them are connecting with that coverage through managed care plans. How managed care is delivered has a significant impact on the health and well-being of children and families. In fact, three-quarters of children enrolled in…
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Indiana Study Documents Unmet Need for Transportation to Care
By Marsha Simon, PhD. Even with the federal government’s official evaluation forthcoming, Indiana’s evaluation of its waiver to drop non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) benefits is telling. The evaluation found a significant number of individuals on Medicaid are missing appointments because they lack transportation. According to survey results, 6 percent of Medicaid recipients under the waiver…