Medicaid
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Poll: Most Americans Believe the Number of Children Who Are Uninsured Has Increased in the Last Five Years
Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families commissioned a national survey of 1000 adults 18 and older to measure perceptions about the state of children in America today. The survey focused on two issues that impact children: health insurance coverage and poverty. The survey was conducted September 20-22, 2013 by PerryUndem Research and Communication. The majority…
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Getting into Gear for 2014: Shifting New Medicaid Eligibility and Enrollment Policies into Drive
On January 1, 2014, many key provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will start to go into effect, including the expansion of Medicaid to low-income adults and the launch of new Medicaid eligibility and enrollment processes, which are designed to move toward a coordinated enrollment system across health coverage programs, including Medicaid, CHIP, and…
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More Details on Michigan’s Medicaid Expansion Emerge
Late last week Michigan filed a waiver amendment with CMS that provides more detail on what they are planning in their Medicaid expansion, which they call “Healthy Michigan.” The waiver amendment is a huge step forward in covering low-income adults, so here’s the good news and a few elements we plan to keep our eye…
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Medicaid Enrollment is Up – as Expected
By Edwin Park, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Media reports have expressed surprise, even concern, that early enrollment in Medicaid under health reform has outpaced enrollment in the new health insurance marketplaces so far. But, that was expected to happen, even before the well-documented technical problems affecting HealthCare.gov, the federal marketplace website. The fact is, the…
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And Another Thing (or two) On Inaccurate Reporting About Medicaid and the ACA …
Perhaps the most egregious error I have seen in recent reporting on Medicaid enrollment and this ACA is from a recent report in CBS News. A CBS News analysis shows that in many of the 15 state-based health insurance exchanges more people are enrolling in Medicaid rather than buying private health insurance. And if that…
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Reality Check: Interest in New Coverage Options and Support for Medicaid Expansion Strong
Amidst all the noise, a new Commonwealth Fund survey provides a helpful reality check that focuses our attention back where it should be: on actual uninsured Americans and how they are approaching the new coverage options available to them. This information is super-current and comes directly from a survey of Americans and not from state…
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Strong Medicaid Enrollment So Far No Surprise to Me
I was going to write this blog earlier in the week but got waylaid by meetings, meetings and more meetings! Today I wake up and see a front-page story in the Washington Post: Medicaid Tops Private Plans in Tallies of New Sign-Ups. It’s not very often that you see a front page story on Medicaid…
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The Administration’s New Welcome Mat for Immigrants: “It’s Safe to Apply”
By Dinah Wiley In previous blogs, I’ve described the reluctance of immigrant families to enroll in Medicaid, CHIP, or marketplace insurance and subsidies. The chief worry for a mixed-status household is whether a health insurance application will trigger immigration enforcement, resulting in “removal” (deportation) of a member of the family who would be separated from…
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CMS Releases Guidance on Ensuring a Smooth Transition for ‘Stairstep’ Kids
By Wesley Prater As I discussed in a previous blog, Section 2001(a)(5)(B) of the Affordable Care Act aligns the minimum eligibility level for children across all age groups. Thus, some states will need to transition children from coverage in their separate CHIP programs to coverage in Medicaid on January 1, 2014. The provision is intended…
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Medicaid Managed Care in Florida: Federal Waiver Approval and Implementation
Florida’s new Medicaid plan– called the Managed Medical Assistance program –will move nearly all of the state’s Medicaid beneficiaries into managed-care plans. This new plan, approved in June 2013, is the final chapter in a Medicaid reform effort that is almost a decade old. Drawing on experiences from that decade of experimentation, the new plan…
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New Urban Paper Compares Eligibility for Assistance Across States
By Martha Heberlein Some exciting new state-by-state data from the Urban Institute gives states a better sense of how many people might be eligible for and enroll in the expanded coverage options under the ACA, finding that more than 25 million uninsured are eligible for some sort of assistance securing coverage. As expected, there’s large…
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States Moving Ahead with Medicaid Expansion Expect Lower State Medicaid Spending in FY 2014
By Tara Mancini Earlier this week, the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured released their 13th annual Medicaid budget survey. The survey found that the average growth in total Medicaid spending and enrollment remained relatively low. However, spending and enrollment will increase across the board in FY 2014 as a result of the welcome…
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If CMS and Arkansas Agree on a Strong Evaluation Plan, I May Breathe a Bit Easier
In August I blogged about Arkansas’s waiver proposal to expand Medicaid using the so-called “private option” which actually means newly-eligible Medicaid beneficiaries will be picking plans from the new insurance marketplace established by the Affordable Care Act. The waiver proposal was approved last Friday but a number of pieces are still outstanding. Expecting approval, the…
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How Will Immigrants Fare Under Health Reform? Encouraging Enrollment
By Dinah Wiley Immigrants who are eligible for Medicaid and CHIP, compared to their citizen counterparts, are less likely to sign up for health coverage. Why is this so? It’s true that newcomers to the U.S. are more healthy than native-born Americans, for a few years at least. Yet when immigrants are offered private insurance…
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Arkansas Medicaid Waiver Agreement Approved
So interesting things always happen on Fridays, I have noticed. This Friday, the week before open enrollment begins, was already pretty hopping when word came that federal CMS had approved Arkansas’ Section 1115 Medicaid waiver request to provide coverage to an estimated 200,000 adults through qualified health plans offered in the Arkansas Health Connector, the state’s health insurance…
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Iowa’s Medicaid Expansion Proposal: A Step Forward, But Read the Fine Print
CCF and 22 other national groups submitted comments to HHS about Iowa’s two complimentary Section 1115 waivers: Iowa Marketplace Choice Plan and Iowa Wellness Plan. Like my colleague Joan Alker wrote last week, Iowa’s proposal is not a simple Medicaid expansion like we saw earlier in the year, but a more complicated “round 2” approach…
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Medicaid Expansion Round 2: From Simplicity to Complexity
As a practical matter, I think accepting 100% federal funding to extend Medicaid coverage to adults and getting that coverage up and running is easier than setting up a state-based marketplace, implementing the new insurance reforms and tax credits etc etc. States obviously already have Medicaid programs up and running – in many cases with…
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Failure to Accept Medicaid Option Harms Hospitals
Two items caught my eye last week that reminded me of the domino effect a state’s rejection of federal funding for the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid option can have on its health care system. First, a new report “States Refusing Medicaid Expansion Fuel Worst Losses” by Bloomberg’s Brian Chappatta explained that hospitals and health care…
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Tech Tuesday: Phase I Medicaid and CHIP Performance Indicators Released (Part I)
The long-awaited performance metrics for Medicaid and CHIP were released last week. And even though I’m a self-admitted data junkie, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that CMS’ new approach to performance reporting is momentous. Why? CMS aims to create a system of data collection and reporting that is consistent across the states…
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Update: 12-Month Continuous Eligbility Can Improve Continuity of Coverage
Last month, I wrote a blog post on a report released on the continuity of coverage in Medicaid. This week, the Association for Community Affiliated Plans released an updated report on why continuity of coverage in Medicaid matters. Continuity of coverage reduces cost and is the first step in getting quality health care. The typical…