Medicaid
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CCF Presentation: How to Access American Community Survey Data
By Tara Mancini This presentation includes a short tutorial on how to use the Census Bureau’s American Fact Finder website to retrieve summary data on health insurance from the American Community Survey. ACS Webinar
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Insure Oklahoma Extension Paves Way for Longer Term Solution
By David Blatt, Oklahoma Policy Institute Last Friday, Oklahoma received formal word that the federal government has agreed to extend Insure Oklahoma, the state’s publicly-funded premium assistance health insurance program, until the end of 2014, subject to certain program changes. This one-year extension means that individuals and businesses that participate in the program will not…
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Wisconsin Provides A Reality Check about What Low-Income Families Can Afford to Pay for Medicaid
States that have not yet decided to expand Medicaid to low income adults and parents are considering their options, and some are hoping to experiment with charging monthly premiums. New data from Wisconsin provides a helpful reality check. Slightly more than two-fifths of the lowest income adults paying premiums—who did not exit BadgerCare or Transitional…
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New Kaiser Report on Access to Care in Medicaid
The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured recently released a new report summarizing the evidence on access to care, health outcomes, and quality of care in Medicaid. It comes as states continue to debate whether or not to accept the federal funds to cover more uninsured people through Medicaid. Two of the report’s findings…
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New Medicaid and CHIP Enrollment Data Indicates Slowdown in Growth but Continued Impact of Recession Lingers
By Tara Mancini The latest data from the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured on Medicaid and CHIP enrollment indicate that growth continues to slow after several years of higher recession-fueled enrollment increases. Between June 2011 and June 2012, the growth rate in Medicaid was 2.5%, slightly less than a third of the growth…
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12-Month Continuous Eligibility Can Improve Continuity of Coverage
Back in May, Martha Heberlein wrote about 5 strategies that CMS is offering to help states face the task of enrolling large numbers of people on January 1, 2014. One of these strategies, 12-month continuous eligibility for adults, is key to improving the continuity of Medicaid coverage, according to a paper published by the Association…
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CMS Issues More Guidance on Stairstep Kids
By Wesley Prater As Tricia Brooks highlighted in her previous blog, CMS recently released a set of FAQs to provide more guidance on telephonic applications, MAGI-based eligibility, Medicaid and CHIP eligibility, and the 75/25 Federal matching rate. The FAQs included more guidance about the transition of children ages 6-18 up to 133% of the FPL…
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Tech Tuesday: HHS Provides Guiding Principles for Telephone Applications
“No wrong door,” a phrase coined to explain access to all the insurance affordability programs (Medicaid, CHIP and subsidized coverage through a Health Insurance Marketplace) through a single application process, is also often used to describe the different paths to enrollment. Beginning October 1, 2013, states are expected to allow individuals to apply online, over…
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Hospitals Should Exercise the Option to Enroll Kids in Medicaid through Presumptive Eligibility
Among many other provisions, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) gives hospitals the prerogative to make Medicaid presumptive eligibility (PE) decisions, regardless of whether the state has previously implemented PE. Presumptive eligibility allows states to train specific “qualified entities,” such as health care providers, schools, government agencies and community-based organizations, to screen for eligibility and temporarily…
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How Will Aligning Eligibility for Children in Medicaid Make Better Sense for Families and States?
By Wesley Prater The Affordable Care Act is most widely recognized for its expansion of affordable coverage to low-income parents and adults; however, a lesser-known feature of the ACA also helps children by aligning Medicaid coverage across families at 133% of the federal poverty level (FPL). Today, states must cover children under the age of…
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Aligning Eligibility for Children: Moving the Stairstep Kids to Medicaid
A feature of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that has not received a lot of attention requires that Medicaid cover children with incomes up to 133 percent FPL as of January 2014. Today, there are “stairstep” eligibility rules for children. States must cover children under the age of six in families with income of at…
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Tech Tuesday: Two States Get Smart and Team Up on Medicaid Management Information System
Most of the attention on IT development has been focused on eligibility and enrollment systems, those customer-facing websites and online applications that collect data from the applicant and other electronic sources to determine eligibility. But behind the scenes, Medicaid Management Information Systems (MMIS) support the “backend” administrative functions such as provider enrollment, prior authorization, medical…
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There’s a Hole in Our Bucket: Addressing Children’s Health Insurance Churn
By Ashley Storms, New England Alliance for Children’s Health Pursuing health coverage for all children can sometimes feel like pouring water into a leaky bucket. Even when outreach and enrollment efforts are strong, a substantial portion of children will lose their insurance at least once. Unstable insurance coverage, known as “churn,” is inefficient and keeps…
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I Support Arkansas’ Effort to Move Forward (But Am Holding My Nose)
So I just skimmed through the Arkansas Section 1115 Medicaid waiver application,which was submitted to the federal government a few days ago. This proposal is unique and uses Medicaid funding to buy coverage in the new marketplace through a premium assistance arrangement. I AM happy that Arkansas legislators and the Governor were sensible enough to…
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On Anniversary of Medicaid, Let’s Celebrate Success in Providing Access to Care and Reducing Poverty
By Tara Mancini Tomorrow we celebrate the anniversary of Medicaid and its 48 years of providing health care access to those with low-income and the medically needy. Medicaid is less often recognized for its ability to provide economic stability to families, even though research has documented its ability to curb the burden of medical expenses.…
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GAO Releases New Report on Section 1115 Waiver Budget Neutrality
The latest GAO analysis of Medicaid Section 1115 waivers finds that the federal government does not always have a consistent policy of ensuring that the waivers are “budget neutral” to the federal government. GAO took a look at 10 Medicaid waivers approved in recent years to see whether there was a consistent policy that ensured…
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Children’s Medicaid/CHIP Crowd-Out Estimates by State
A new report by researchers at The Ohio State University College of Public Health finds that wealthier families who are eligible for public insurance are less likely to switch from private to public coverage than families earning less. The authors use ACS data and a regression discontinuity approach to obtain state estimates on how many…
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Arkansas Medicaid is Containing Costs Effectively so Why Go Private?
Just saw an interesting press release from Arkansas Medicaid agency on July 12th which says that “Arkansas Medicaid finished State Fiscal Year 2013 just 1.5 percent over the previous year’s spending, marking the program’s lowest annual growth rate in more than three decades.” Thanks to Dylan Scott’s article in Governing Magazine for calling this to…
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New Kaiser/Urban Report Highlights the Costs of NOT Extending Medicaid
By Martha Heberlein As many states are nearing or have reached the end of their legislative sessions, it’s a good time to take stock of who will implement the Medicaid expansion and the far-reaching implications of these decisions. Twenty-four states have decided to move forward with the expansion, 21 will not, and 6 continue to…
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CMS Issues Final Rule on New Premium Assistance Option
As my diligent colleague Tricia Brooks reported, CMS issued an important final rule on July 5th that we have been expecting for some time. While the rule did not finalize a number of issues, it did include slightly revised rules for states interested in pursuing premium assistance in the individual market – sort of a hot…