Medicaid
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Medicaid Presumptive Eligibility Coming to a Hospital Near You
Beginning in January 2014, hospitals that provide Medicaid services can begin making presumptive eligibility (PE) decisions giving temporary Medicaid (and/or CHIP) coverage to children, pregnant women, parents and adults covered under the Medicaid expansion. The Affordable Care Act permits this action without regard to whether the state has adopted PE as a policy (as 32…
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Proposed Medicaid and CHIP Performance Indicators Offer Hope of Transparency and Accountability
It’s nice to have reason to take off my navigator hat for a change of pace. And a Request for Information (RFI) on proposed performance indicators for Medicaid and CHIP released earlier this year gave me a great opportunity to focus on another passion of mine – data to assess the effectiveness of our public…
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Covering Parents is Good for Kids: How Expanding Medicaid Helps Low-Income Adults
(Editor’s Note: Welcome to the Center for Children and Families’ “Covering Parents is Good for Kids” blog series. Previous blogs on this topic have pointed out that extending Medicaid coverage to parents will provide a good value to states; maternal, infant and early childhood home visiting programs help prevent child maltreatment; covering parents can help depressed mothers get treatment and improve…
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New Resource Looks at Premium Assistance Options in Medicaid/CHIP
Yesterday my new report for the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured was released called Premium Assistance in Medicaid and CHIP: An Overview of Current Options and Implications of the Affordable Care Act. The paper examines how statutory changes in the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act and the Affordable Care Act have changed…
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New Study Finds Failure to Expand Medicaid Could be Costly for Employers
A new study provides states with yet another reason to accept federal funding to extend Medicaid coverage to more uninsured people. A study by Jackson Hewitt Tax Service found that states that fail to accept the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid option will leave employers exposed to higher shared responsibility payments than employers in states that…
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Premium Assistance in Medicaid and CHIP: An Overview of Current Options and Implications of the Affordable Care Act
Premium assistance is the use of public funds through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to purchase private coverage. States have pursued premium assistance with varied objectives, including covering parents not otherwise eligible for public coverage and promoting the use of private coverage. Implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) coverage expansions is likely to spark renewed…
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Florida Medicaid Expansion – Not Dead Yet
Yesterday, the Florida Senate Select Committee on PPACA voted against a Florida Medicaid expansion on a straight party line vote – a surprise to some since a few Republicans on the committee, including Chairman Negron, had indicated that they were interested in moving forward. Many media sources are reporting that the Medicaid expansion is all…
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Ryan Budget Would Drastically Alter Medicaid
In releasing his budget today, Chairman Paul Ryan stated that a budget is a “means to an end”. After scanning his budget, you may wonder what drastic end he has in mind. Once again, his budget proposal is lopsided and would harm the most vulnerable while protecting the most secure. His plan would radically alter…
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Medicaid Access: Increased Demand for Primary Care Providers Will Vary Across Country
By Tara Mancini See CCF’s latest fact sheet on Medicaid Access Earlier this week, my colleague, Joan Alker, blogged about how Medicaid provides access to needed care. As she mentioned, the decision to extend Medicaid coverage to millions of the uninsured has often been met with skepticism over whether the health care system has the…
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New Resources from CCF Shows Medicaid Provides Access to Needed Care
A perennial question that is raised about Medicaid is whether beneficiaries can actually find doctors to access the care they need. A new factsheet from CCF on access to health care summarizes available research which shows that in general the answer is a resounding yes. Studies have consistently found that access to primary and preventive…
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Florida’s Medicaid Choice Under the ACA
These slides were used in Joan Alker’s testimony to the Senate Select Committee on PPACA in Tallahassee, FL.
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Is There a New Premium Assistance Option in the Air?
So as I mentioned in my last blog on the Secretary’s Q and A in December, which most notably said waivers to do a partial Medicaid expansion are not on offer, an extremely obscure premium assistance option has been dusted off and featured in the Secretary’s letter – drum roll please — Section 1905a of…
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New Mexico Says “Yes” to the Medicaid Expansion – and Now the Real Work Begins
By Kelsey McCowan Heilman, New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty and Nick Estes, New Mexico Voices for Children Earlier this month, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez announced that New Mexico will accept federal funding to expand Medicaid eligibility for adults to 138% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). This is a critical decision for the…
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Annual 50-State Medicaid and CHIP Survey Shows Progress and Gaps
For the third year, the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured teamed up with CCF to conduct an annual survey of state Medicaid and CHIP eligibility, enrollment, renewal, and cost-sharing practices. This year’s report, “Getting into Gear for 2014,” clearly shows that states continue to simplify and modernize Medicaid and CHIP in ways that…
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Getting Into Gear for 2014: Findings from a 50-State Survey of Eligibility, Enrollment, Renewal, and Cost-Sharing Policies in Medicaid and CHIP, 2012-2013
As 2013 begins, implementation of the major provisions of the ACA, including its coverage expansions, is less than a year away. Following the Supreme Court ruling to uphold the ACA and the 2012 elections, efforts to prepare for 2014 are moving into high gear in many states. The majority of states are capitalizing on web-based…
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The New Year Brings Positive News: Medicaid Spending and Enrollment Growth Declined in 2011
By Tara Mancini Earlier this month, the Office of the Actuary at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid released its annual data on national health expenditures, finding that growth remained constant for a third consecutive year. Medicaid spending growth slowed, in contrast to spending by Medicare, private health insurers, and consumers’ out-of-pocket, all of which…
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Breaking News – Arizona’s Governor Says ‘Yes’ to Extending Medicaid Coverage – Is This a Tipping Point?
In her State of the State address today, Governor Jan Brewer said that she will be asking the Arizona Legislature to move forward with an expansion of the Medicaid program for parents and childless adults to 133% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). Governor Brewer is proposing a provider assessment to pay for the state’s…
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HHS Secretary Answered Several Questions About New Medicaid Coverage and Waivers
As my colleague Elisabeth Burak blogged about last month, Secretary Sebelius released a letter to Governors with answers to 39 frequently asked questions related to ACA implementation on December 10th. Most notably, the FAQ addressed whether or not CMS would allow waivers for “partial expansions” now that the Supreme Court has rendered the expansion of…
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Louisiana Shows States can Streamline Medicaid and CHIP Enrollment AND Achieve Low Eligibility Error Rates
By Stan Dorn, Urban Institute Sometimes people fear that streamlining Medicaid and CHIP enrollment and retention may increase error rates. Louisiana has once again shown, in the words of the Gershwin classic, that “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” On November 21, 2012, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released the state’s 2011 Payment Error Rate…
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NASBO Report Leads to Confusion on State Medicaid Spending
By Tara Mancini The Fall 2012 State Fiscal Survey of States prepared by the National Association of State Budget Officers and the National Governors Association echoes the message that we have heard since the end of the recession; state budgets are rebounding slowly, but remain fragile. The report contains lots of useful information and is…