The University of North Carolina’s Rural Health Research Program tracks closures of rural hospitals across the country. From 2010 to the present there are six states with five or more rural hospital closures. Texas leads with a stunning 15 rural hospitals closed, followed closely by Tennessee (9 rural hospitals closed) and Georgia (7 rural hospitals […]
Last year, working with our partners at the University of North Carolina’s Rural Health Project, we released a report that underscored the critical role that Medicaid plays in rural areas and small towns with populations below 50,000. This year Jack Hoadley, Mark Holmes and I took a look at how Medicaid expansion has impacted these same […]
Last month, federal CMS reopened the public comment period on Mississippi’s proposed Section 1115 Medicaid work requirements waiver at the same time as Kentucky’s comment period was reopened. Mississippi’s proposal has not garnered as much attention as Kentucky’s, which as regular readers of SayAhhh! know, is currently on hold due to a federal court decision. […]
A new report from the Louisiana Department of Health, the 2017 Louisiana Health Insurance Survey, shows multiple positive effects from Louisiana’s recent Medicaid expansion – and continuing overall satisfaction with Medicaid and other coverage. While the report focused on adult coverage, it also noted that Louisiana retains its remarkable success at reducing the uninsured rate […]
With 34 states (including DC) now expanding Medicaid since 2014 and 17 states still refusing expansion, the ability for researchers to compare patient experiences in these disparate two groups of states has resulted in literally hundreds of high-quality studies – a “natural experiment” created by the Supreme Court’s decision to make the expansion optional. A […]
On Tuesday, August 21, the Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM) released the second “assessment” of the Medicaid expansion as a follow-up to the first, General Assembly required, assessment from 2016. In this document the ODM found the following: EMPLOYMENT Employment for enrollees went up 15%, meaning 1 in 2 expansion enrollees are working The most common reason for […]
