Medicaid
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Florida’s Medicaid Choice: Options and Implications
In 2013, the Florida Legislature chose not to expand Medicaid to those with incomes below 133% of the federal poverty line. Consequently, Florida today is among 24 states that are not receiving federal Medicaid expansion funding. As the 2014 Legislative session nears, the question of whether to accept the federal Medicaid dollars likely will be debated again. This…
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It Takes Time to Reduce Emergency Room Use
By Tara Mancini Last month, another round of results were released by the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment (OHIE). The examination found that emergency department (ED) use increased by 40 percent among those who were enrolled in Medicaid compared to the control group. The results raised an important and obvious question: what would ED usage look…
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Overlap Between Medicaid MCO’s, Marketplace Plans Could Smooth a Rough Edge of Health Reform
Margaret A. Murray and Jennifer Babcock, Association for Community Affiliated Plans In late January, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) made public figures showing that more than three million people had enrolled in health plans offering coverage through Health Insurance Marketplaces in the last three months of 2013. Many have selected a Qualified…
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Arkansas ‘Private Option’ Model Doesn’t Make Sense for Pennsylvania
As readers of SayAhhh! know, Governor Corbett of Pennsylvania is currently revising a Section 1115 Medicaid waiver proposal to extend Medicaid coverage to the newly eligible low-income adults in his state. That would be great news if it weren’t such a problematic proposal (as I have blogged about before). The state took public comments on…
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How Do Updated 2014 Federal Poverty Level Thresholds Impact Medicaid, CHIP & Premium Tax Credit Eligibility?
By Martha Heberlein Updated 2014 federal poverty thresholds were released on January 22nd and inquiring minds have been asking what they mean in terms of determining eligibility for Medicaid, CHIP, and premium tax credits. And the answer, as with so many things in our world is, “well, it depends.” Let’s start with premium tax credits…
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SNAP! And 153,000 California Children Can Get No-Cost Health Insurance Without an Application
By Kristen Golden Testa, The Children’s Partnership Imagine your infant has a high fever and you want to bring her to the doctor but don’t have health insurance. Or your young child can’t concentrate at school due to a tooth ache and you can’t afford to go to the dentist without coverage. Now imagine, one…
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Rep. Waxman’s Legacy Includes Significant Improvements in Children’s Health Coverage
Like many of you, I will truly miss Representative Henry Waxman when he retires from Congress at the end of this term. I admire his work ethic, deep concern for others and tireless efforts to stand up for those who need his help the most. Most of all, I admire his ability to get things…
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History Rebuts Claim that Federal Medicaid Matching Rates Are Unstable
By Edwin Park, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities As I explained last week, there’s no evidence to support claims that the federal government will renege on its commitment to finance nearly all of the costs of health reform’s Medicaid expansion. Some critics also assert that Congress frequently changes the formula that determines what share of states’…
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The Federal Financial Commitment to Medicaid Expansion Stands
By Edwin Park, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Health reform’s Medicaid expansion is a great deal for states. The federal government will finance nearly all of its costs, picking up 100 percent of expansion costs for the first three years (2014-2016) and no less than 90 percent on a permanent basis. In fact, as a recent…
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Where Does EPSDT Stand in Post-ACA Medicaid Expansion 1115 Waivers?
In the last few months, CMS has approved Medicaid expansion 1115 waiver demonstrations in Arkansas, Iowa and Michigan. Pennsylvania has a draft 1115 waiver proposal to expand Medicaid out as well. One important question that has emerged is: How will states continue to provide EPSDT and other benefits to 19 and 20 year olds who…
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CBPP Finds New Plan to Repeal ACA Would Lead to Deep Cuts for Medicaid Beneficiaries, Higher Costs and Fewer Consumer Protections
By Edwin Park, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) unveiled a new plan to repeal all of health reform (the Affordable Care Act or ACA) except for certain provisions related to Medicare, cap federal Medicaid funding, and create a new tax credit for people…
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NWLC’s Report Finds Troubling Health Disparities for Low-Income Uninsured Women in States that Have’t Expanded Medicaid Coverage
States that have not yet accepted Medicaid funding to offer coverage to more uninsured adults are doing a huge disservice to women, according to a new report by the National Women’s Law Center. The report found troubling disparities between low-income women with and without health insurance and identified an urgent need to expand coverage in…
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Express Lane Eligibility Has Proven Its Effectiveness – Time to Make it a Permanent Policy Option
Piloting new ways of doing things makes sense. It’s a way to test whether a concept or idea will work the way it’s envisioned, and fine-tune it based on actual experience. To this extent 13 states (AL, CO, GA, IA, LA, MD, ME, NJ, NY, OK, PA, SC, UT) have spent the past five years…
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Children’s Behavioral Health Care Use in Medicaid: Highlights from a National Analysis
By Kamala Allen and Taylor Hendricks, Center for Health Care Strategies “Eleven-year-old Angel has moved from one foster home to another since age six. His mother struggles with heroin addiction, his father is deceased, and he rarely sees his three siblings who live in separate foster homes. Angel has a hard time concentrating in school…
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New Badgercare Waiver is Good News/Bad News for Transitional Medicaid
By Jon Peacock, Wisconsin Council on Children and Families The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) announced yesterday that Wisconsin has been granted a federal waiver to make substantial changes to BadgerCare. As anticipated, the waiver allows the state to extend BadgerCare up to the poverty level for adults who aren’t custodial parents of dependent…
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Michigan Medicaid Expansion Waiver Approved; CMS Also Releases New Medicaid/CHIP FAQs
While I was enjoying some holiday down time with the family, CMS was busy churning things out over the past few weeks. On December 30th, CMS approved Michigan’s Section 1115 Medicaid waiver to help open the doors to Medicaid coverage for an estimated 300,000-500,000 Michiganders. The Medicaid expansion,will be implemented on April 1st. The Michigan…
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Budget Deal Kicks “Medicaid Extenders” Down the Road, Adds DSH Delay
Earlier I wrote about progress in the Senate on the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) repeal, or “doc fix,” which passed the Finance committee with the Medicaid extenders intact. Since time was running out for the House and Senate to agree on the exact terms for a permanent SGR fix, the Murray-Ryan budget agreement on…
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Many Southern States Miss Opportunity to Address Health Disparities
By Tara Mancini A new report from the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured (KCMU) indicates that a little more than half (53%) of uninsured people of color have family income at or below 138% and therefore should qualify for Medicaid in 2014 as the ACA originally intended. Yet, almost a third (30%) of…
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Health Policy Institute Releases New Report on Florida’s Medicaid Long-Term Care Program
By Laura Summer, Georgetown University Health Policy Institute Florida’s new Medicaid Managed Long-Term Care program is in place in six regions of the state and will be fully operational statewide by March 1, 2014. Planning for this new program has been in the works for several years. In 2011, the Florida legislature established the two-part…
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Pennsylvania’s Medicaid Waiver Proposal Does Not Impress
Last Friday, Governor Corbett’s Administration released it’s Section 1115 waiver application draft. This initiates the process for the required 30-day state comment period that must precede the submission of the waiver request to the federal government. The state will be holding a series of public hearings and webinars with the final hearing in Harrisburg…