Vulnerable Populations
-
Birth Centers Offer Potential to Transform Maternity Care Through Community-Led Approaches that Focus on Families of Color
Last month the Commonwealth Fund highlighted the role of freestanding birth centers in Community-Led Approach to Transforming Maternity Care. Freestanding birth centers, which use a midwifery and wellness model, provide a choice for families to deliver outside of a hospital or their home. The U.S. hosts 415 freestanding birth centers in 40 states and Washington,…
-
Shades of Blue Project Making Shift Happen for Black Maternal Mental Health
Black Maternal Mental Health Week, created by Shades of Blue Project founder Kay Matthews, is celebrated annually from July 19-25. Every year the Shades of Blue Project hosts their Black Maternal Mental Health Summit in Houston, TX during Black Maternal Mental Health Week. The theme of this year’s Black Maternal Mental Health is the Art…
-
Research Update: It’s Simple—Medicaid Helps People Work
My colleagues have been analyzing the highly damaging Medicaid work reporting requirement provisions of the House-passed debt ceiling bill crafted by Speaker McCarthy, including how it would likely harm people with disabilities and parents. There is an overwhelming stack of evidence showing that work requirements are a terrible idea: they don’t actually improve employment rates,…
-
New CMS Guidance Encourages State Demonstrations to Improve Transitions into the Community for Individuals Released After Incarceration
On April 17, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), issued new guidance sharing a new opportunity for states interested in improving transitions from state incarceration to the community. The grotesque racial inequities in justice-involved populations, combined with abrupt transitions back into community settings without health supports after incarceration, lead to poor post-release health…
-
McCarthy Bill Would Radically Change Disability Standards for Medicaid and Reduce Coverage for Persons with Disabilities
As my colleagues Joan Alker and Edwin Park recently discussed, Section 321 of Speaker McCarthy’s debt ceiling bill, passed on a party-line vote in the House on April 26, 2023, would impose mandatory work reporting requirements on Medicaid nationwide, burdening states and worsening the health of millions of people. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this…
-
Biden Administration Takes Step to Improve DACA Grantees’ Access to Health Coverage, Congress and States Should Do More
Following up on President Biden’s announcement earlier this month, HHS released a proposed rule that would make DACA grantees eligible for Marketplace coverage and some Medicaid/CHIP coverage. This is an important step in the right direction – removing unnecessary and unjustified barriers to health coverage for DACA grantees – but there is more work to…
-
Medicaid Coverage At Risk for People with Disabilities: How You Can Help
By Michael Atkins, The Arc of the United States Medicaid is the nation’s primary health insurance for people with disabilities, covering over ten million people with disabilities under the age of 65. For many people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), Medicaid provides even more than insurance – it’s a lifeline. Millions of people with…
-
Medicaid Managed Care: A Promising New Point of Accountability
In most states, a central challenge for Medicaid is holding managed care organizations (MCOs) accountable for their performance for enrollees, especially children and families. Medicaid MCOs are collectively responsible for the health of tens of millions (with an “m”) of Medicaid beneficiaries and the proper use of hundreds of billions (with a “b”) of federal…
-
New Data Underscores Need to Catch up on Routine Childhood Vaccinations
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released updated data on vaccination coverage among kindergartners, showing a continued decline in the share of children with the recommended doses of routine childhood vaccines needed to prevent the spread of harmful diseases. The report includes data on vaccination rates by state for four vaccines: measles, mumps,…
-
White House Enlists Broad Range of Programs, Partners to Connect Youngest Children to COVID Vaccines
Many parents are anxiously awaiting approval of the COVID vaccine for children under age 5. Once approved, the vaccines will close the final gap in vaccine access so that Americans of all ages can get immunized. As we wait for final approvals, the Biden Administration has been at work shoring up a range of partners…
-
Comment Period for New DACA Regulation Closes November 29
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a new notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,” in late September and the comment deadline of November 29 is fast approaching. The NPRM seeks to codify the DACA policy originally laid out in a memo by then-Secretary of DHS Janet Napolitano in June 2012.…
-
Advocacy Tips to Connect Afghan Evacuees to Health Coverage
Even close followers of Congress and the Administration may have missed a couple of recent developments about access to health coverage for Afghan evacuees arriving in the US following the withdrawal of troops this summer. The complexity of immigration rules and Medicaid eligibility rules has led to a lot of confusion about Medicaid eligibility specifically,…
-
Time-Limited Opportunity to Increase WIC Benefits for Moms and Kids
The American Rescue Plan (ARP) provided funding for a range of programs to address the COVID-19 pandemic and the hardships it has inflicted on millions of families in the United States. One of the many pro-family provisions in the new law allows states to temporarily increase the fruits and vegetables benefit to women and children…
-
Biden Administration Actions on Public Charge Rules Help Restore Hope for Immigrant Families
This week brought some much-needed good news on public charge, which has immigration advocates singing Prince’s classic hit, “1999,” in homage to a return to the longstanding public charge rules also known as the 1999 field guidance. The good news is certainly worthy of a princely celebration, but some may be wondering how we got…
-
HIV and Medicaid Expansion: Failure of Southern States to Expand Medicaid Makes Elimination of HIV Infection in the United States Much Harder to Achieve
By Adam Searing, JD, MPH and Adaora A. Adimora, MD, MPH Introduction Advances in public health programs and medical treatment mean HIV can be treated successfully in the long term, improving the health of individuals and reducing the spread of the virus. While the federal government has multiple initiatives aimed at addressing and eventually eliminating…
-
National Strategy Needed to Close Health Care Gaps, Protect Children’s Health and Well-Being
New research from the Urban Institute, “Urgent Action Needed to Address Children’s Unmet Health Care Needs during the Pandemic,” identifies the problems families with children are facing and some proven solutions, but explains that without a coordinated, national response, it’s unlikely that the children most at risk will get needed supports. Instead, as the authors…
-
Nevada Senator joins conversation about disparities in Latino communities during pandemic
This Is Reno By: Bianca Wright On July 16, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, representatives from UnidosUS—the United States’s largest Latino non-profit advocacy organization—and Congressman Joaquin Castro gathered on a conference call to discuss the latest report from UnidosUS, a document that describes how Latino people in the U.S. have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus…
-
Request for Action on Pending Section 1115 Demonstrations to Reduce Racial Disparities
The Georgetown University Center for Children and Families and 278 other organizations sent the following letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services urging him to take action on certain pending section 1115 demonstration waivers to address racial disparities and years of systematic racism. Medicaid_Supporting Black Women Sign-On Letter
-
DACA is here to stay… for now
Today, the Supreme Court rejected the Trump Administration’s decision to terminate Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), finding that the move was a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) because it was arbitrary and capricious. (This may sound familiar – it’s the same problem the Administration has faced in the litigation surrounding Medicaid work…
-
At Hug Me Tight, no more hugs for now: The challenges of child care in the age of COVID-19
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette By: Kate Giammarise For the first time in months, young children toddled through the door at Hug Me Tight Childlife Center on Monday. They faced a few changes. Two-year-old Titan Yates arrived around 8:30 a.m. His mother Ty logged him into the center’s computer system by using her phone to scan a QR…
