Medicaid
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…