Medicaid
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Premium Assistance and Wrapped Benefits: Do They Work?
Author’s note: This is the first in a two (or possibly three) part blog series – the next installment will ponder this question with a particular eye to the future of children’s coverage… Along with co-authors MaryBeth Musumeci and Robin Rudowitz at the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, Sean Miskell and I undertook…
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Arkansas and Arizona Drive in Different Directions on Medicaid Transportation Benefit
By Sean Miskell Most observers expect that remaining states that have not yet expanded Medicaid are likely to seek changes to the program via waivers as they move forward on expansion. A few states that have already expanded Medicaid are also seeking to make changes through waivers. But these changes are not always for the…
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Comments Submitted On Texas Medicaid Waiver
Georgetown CCF, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and seven other national organizations submitted a letter to CMS for public comment on Texas’ proposal to extend its Section 1115 Medicaid demonstration project, the Texas Healthcare Transformation and Quality Improvement Program. The full comments that were submitted November 16, 2015 can be found here –…
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$32 Million Now Available to Help Reach Eligible but Unenrolled Kids
Most uninsured children are eligible for Medicaid or CHIP but are not yet enrolled so finding them and helping them enroll is critical to successfully reducing the uninsured rate for children. As my colleague Tricia Brooks has pointed out many times, it is no secret that sustained outreach and enrollment support is the key to…
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Medicaid Expansion Would Help More Latino Families Succeed
By Steven Lopez, National Council of La Raza Latinos are the most uninsured population in the country. As the largest civil rights and advocacy organization in the nation, the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) works to improve the lives of Hispanic Americans, no matter who they are, where they live, or how much they…
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More Evidence that Medicaid Expansion Helps State Budgets
Recently, Kaiser Family Foundation released a report on Medicaid Enrollment & Spending Growth for FY 2015 and 2016. There is a lot of interesting data in the report, but the stand out finding confirms what we already know: Medicaid expansion is good for state budgets and leads to increases in coverage. Medicaid Enrollment is up…
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While NC’s Governor Reverses Course on Medicaid Expansion, Some Conservative State Executives Move Ahead
In this excerpt of an interview late last week with WRAL-TV anchor David Crabtree, NC Governor Pat McCrory, when asked about Medicaid, said that expansion would now have to wait at least three years for health reforms to take place in the state. McCrory also highlighted an Oval Office meeting he and several other Governors had…
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Targeted Medicaid Enrollment Reaches More Kids
By Suzanne Wikle, CLASP The rate of children without health insurance has hit an all-time low of 6 percent, according to a new report from the Center for Children and Families. The drop is largely attributable to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and to states’ efforts to increase enrollment. States that have opted to expand Medicaid…
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Medicaid Expansion: Important Factor in Declining Uninsurance Rates for Children
Our report released last week (Children’s Health Insurance Rates in 2014: ACA Results in Significant Improvements) contained good news for people who share the belief that no child should ever be uninsured in our country – the national child uninsurance rate is now at a historic low of 6 percent. Kids haven’t quite caught up…
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Child Uninsured Rate Hits Historic Low – Thanks Goes Mainly to ACA, Medicaid & CHIP
Like many of you I was super excited to see the first round of data from the Census Bureau looking at health insurance rates in 2014 when it came out in late September. Needless to say, 2014 was a big year for health policy changes! Today we are releasing our annual report focused specifically on…
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ACA Helps Bring Child Uninsured Rate Down To New Record Low
This year’s American Community Survey (ACS) data from 2014 provide a first look at how the implementation of the ACA is affecting coverage rates for children – both nationwide and in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Our analysis looks at the profile of uninsured children in 2014 and examines rates of change…
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Arkansas Health Care Reform Task Force Considers Changes to Medicaid Private Option
By Marquita Little, Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families Consultants for the Arkansas Health Care Reform Task Force released a new report recommending the Private Option become a transitional or temporary program focused on “moving people upward” to opportunities. This is on the heels of an earlier report noting the Private Option will save the…
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Taking it to the streets: New ways to get uninsured kids enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP
by Sheila Hoag, Senior Researcher, and Debra Lipson, Senior Fellow, Mathematica Policy Research Traditionally, state and local Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) staff have conducted outreach to uninsured children eligible to help enroll them into these public coverage options. Advocates have also organized public education campaigns and enrollment events. Despite dramatic progress in…
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Cancer Patient: Medicaid Expansion Could Help Save Lives Like Mine in South Dakota
Ida Sievers of Renner, South Dakota, describes in this KELO TV (keloland.com) story how she avoided going to the doctor despite feeling awful for almost two years because she lacked health coverage—then when she finally went it turned out she had untreated leukemia. Dr. Rich Wender, the Chief Cancer Control Officer of the American Cancer…
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More People Have Health Coverage in Every State Thanks to ACA; Yet Some of the Poorest are Being Left Behind
by Suzanne Wikle, Projector Director, Advancing Strategies for Aligning Programs, CLASP When President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law, advocates hailed it as the most important health legislation since the creation of Medicaid and Medicare in 1965 — and one of the most important anti-poverty laws in decades as well. The monumental…
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Arkansas’s Health Care Reform Forum: Medicaid Expansion and the Private Option
How has the Affordable Care Act and health care reform directly affected consumers and access to health care? How does Medicaid expansion relate to the broader health reform effort? How has Arkansas’s Private Option affected the state’s health care system? What makes a premium assistance model appealing for health care Arkansas and other states? These…
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Many working parents in Georgia would benefit from closing health coverage gap
by Cindy Zeldin, Executive Director, Georgians for a Healthy Future It’s often assumed that if you have a job, you have health insurance. That’s not the case for many working families in Georgia, though, because our state leaders haven’t accepted the federal funding set aside for us to extend cost-effective Medicaid coverage to more uninsured…
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Child and Parent Health Issues Can Lead to Chronic Absenteeism & Impact Student Success
Editor’s Note: Yesterday we published the first half of our interview with Hedy Chang of Attendance Works. She explained how child and parent health issues can become a barrier to school attendance and future success. Today we conclude the interview. Q: Many of the health barriers to attendance that your report mentions are preventable and/or treatable…
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School Attendance and Health Care: Why Chronic Absenteeism Isn’t Just About Truancy
Editor’s Note: This is part 1 of a two-part conversation with Attendance Works Director Hedy Chang. Chang spoke to us about the critical role health care can play in closing the attendance gap. Attendance Works is a national initiative aimed at advancing student success by removing barriers and encouraging children to attend school regularly. A report Attendance Works…
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Many Working Parents and Families in Georgia Would Benefit from Extending Medicaid Coverage
Georgia is one of the 19 states that have elected not to accept federal funding under the ACA to extend Medicaid coverage to parents and other low-income adults and is not actively considering plans for coverage. Consequently, parents in Georgia are not eligible for Medicaid or premium tax credits if their incomes exceed 39 percent of…
