Rural Health
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States at Risk = Children and Families at Risk
It is a truth universally acknowledged that states don’t get sick, people get sick. But in a program like Medicaid, where the federal government and the states share in the cost of medical and long-term care services that people need, the fiscal fortunes of states and the health of beneficiaries are inextricably linked. If the…
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Connecting the Dots: Capping Medicaid, Closing Rural Hospitals, and Stranding Rural Children and Families
The Senate was designed by our founding fathers to protect less populated states. Few would dispute that over the decades, the Senate has faithfully executed that institutional mission, especially when it comes to health policy. So it is completely mystifying that the Senate, according to all reports, is seriously considering capping federal Medicaid payments to…
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Medicaid is Increasingly Important for Kids and Families in Small Towns and Rural Communities
Since we started doing our annual report on uninsured children six years ago, the slightly higher overall rate for children living in rural areas has caught my eye. As a researcher, I always want to learn more about the populations that have higher uninsured rates. This year, with funding from the Pritzker Children’s Initiative, my…
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Rural Health Report: Medicaid is a Lifeline for Small Towns and Rural Communities
Medicaid is a vital source of health coverage nationwide, but the program’s role is even more pronounced in small towns and rural areas. Medicaid covers a larger share of nonelderly adults and children in rural and small-town areas than in metropolitan areas; this trend is strongest among children. Demographic factors have an impact on this…
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State Data on Child Health Coverage in Small Towns and Rural Areas
The state-specific downloads in the table below show county-level data on children’s Medicaid coverage and uninsurance for the time periods 2008/09 and 2014/15. The accompanying county-level state maps show whether a county was below or above the national average in 2014/15 with regard to the rate of children’s medicaid coverage and the rate of uninsured children in…
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State Data on Adult Health Coverage in Small Towns and Rural Areas
The state-specific downloads in the table below show county-level data on adults’ Medicaid coverage and uninsurance for the time periods 2008/09 and 2014/15. The accompanying county-level state maps show whether a county was below or above the national average in 2014/15 with regard to the rate of adults’ medicaid coverage and the rate of uninsured adults in small towns and…
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Medicaid Fills a Crucial Role in Rural America
A number of new resources have been published recently by other research organizations on the key role that Medicaid plays in providing coverage for residents of rural areas. The Kaiser Family Foundation’s report, “The Role of Medicaid in Rural America,” found that Medicaid helps overcome some of the unique challenges in rural areas including provider…
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Proposed Changes to Medicaid Threaten Access to Health Care
In the 1990s, the Medicaid program was often discussed by policymakers as a secondary topic after dealing with issues surrounding Medicare and reforming managed care. There were several reasons for this. Medicaid was seen as a “welfare” program targeted at specific poor populations. The country still hadn’t yet experienced the deep recessions that would mean…
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Council of Economic Advisers Reports Uninsured Rate Now at Lowest Point in History
Last month, the Council of Economic Advisers released a report demonstrating that historic progress on health insurance coverage is due, in large part, to the ACA. Since the ACA took effect, an estimated 20 million additional adults gained health insurance, the children’s uninsured rate fell by almost half, and the overall uninsured rate fell to…
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The Return on Investment of Medicaid Expansion: Supporting Work and Health in Rural Ohio
By Loren Anthes, MBA, Fellow, Center for Medicaid Policy, originally posted by the Center for Community Solutions When debating the Medicaid expansion in 2013, the Ohio legislature appropriately questioned whether expanding the program to non-disabled adults would be done so efficiently, supporting the health, welfare, and economy of Ohio and its citizens. The subsequent policy process reflected…
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A Tale of Two States: Children’s Uninsurance Rates in Texas and California
This week, we released our sixth annual report on children’s health coverage rates across the country. Overall, we found that the country is making incredible progress in reducing rates of uninsurance with the vast majority of states (41 states) experiencing a significant decline in uninsurance rates. The two states with the largest population of uninsured…
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Beyond the Reduction in Uncompensated Care: Medicaid Expansion Is Having a Positive Impact on Safety Net Hospitals and Clinics
More than two years after the onset of expanded Medicaid coverage, significant differences are emerging between states that opted to expand Medicaid and those that did not. This report contains the findings of telephone interviews with eleven leaders of hospital systems and federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) in seven states. Three of the states where we conducted interviews…
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Senate Bill Would Result in Coverage Loss for Six Million Newly Medicaid Insured Adults and Children’s Uninsured Rate will Increase Sharply, Reversing Historic and Bipartisan Gains
The United States Senate just passed a bill that would effectively repeal multiple provisions of the Affordable Care Act and result in at least 22 million Americans becoming uninsured. The Congressional Budget Office warned in its analysis of the legislation that major health insurance market disruption would be very likely, noting that: “[R]epealing the subsidies…
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$32 Million Now Available to Help Reach Eligible but Unenrolled Kids
Most uninsured children are eligible for Medicaid or CHIP but are not yet enrolled so finding them and helping them enroll is critical to successfully reducing the uninsured rate for children. As my colleague Tricia Brooks has pointed out many times, it is no secret that sustained outreach and enrollment support is the key to…
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Complaints About Strong State Medicaid Enrollment Numbers Don’t Add Up
An occasional line among opponents of states using federal Medicaid dollars to close the health coverage gap is that some states have been too successful in enrolling people in this new health coverage option – the uninsured rate in expansion states is apparently falling too quickly to suit some people. I wrote about the puzzling inconsistencies…
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Advocates Join Mayor O’Neal’s Walk to Focus on Need to Expand Medicaid and Save Rural Hospitals
Starting this week, Mayor Adam O’Neal of Belhaven began leading his second 283 mile walk from his small town in North Carolina to Washington DC. This year, several state health care advocates we know and admire including Laura Guerra-Cardus of the Children’s Defense Fund Texas, five other Texans and repeat walkers Adam Linker and Nicole…
