Vulnerable Populations
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Public Comments are Virtually Unanimous Against Mississippi’s Harmful Medicaid Proposal
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.…
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Video: These Parents of Medically Complex Kids Explain Why Medicaid Matters to Their Families
If you want to know about kids, listen to parents. Sometimes in the health policy and political worlds, it’s easy to forget this simple piece of advice – and sometimes politicians and policymakers are too focused on the latest bill or political win to remember it. Over the last year, we’ve spent a lot of…
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Capable, Not Willing: Reuniting Families Could Take Longer If Administration Doesn’t Make it a Priority
As readers of SayAhhh! already know, the President’s Executive Order (EO) on family separation at the U.S. border raised more questions than it answered and had many disturbing implications. The EO did not end family separation as it purported. Instead, the EO outlined a policy to detain families indefinitely while seeking the authority to end…
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Americans Love Families. American Policies Don’t.
New York Times By: Emily Badger and Claire Cain Miller Politicians are united in their love for families. The very word — “families” — was among those said most often by Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton in campaign speeches. Democrats and Republicans have platforms for middle-class families, working families, military families. And candidates in need…
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What Does Trump’s Executive Order Mean for Children at the Border?
When news broke this week that President Trump was going to stop separating families at the border, we felt cautious optimism. As we waited for the details, I wondered what the Administration’s new policy would say about addressing family immigration and how it would ensure families already separated would be reunited. I hoped the President’s…
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Detention or Separation: Administration Sets False Choice for Families
The legal parameters around immigration and detention have been hotly debated in the past few weeks. I turned to the experts in immigration law for the answer, and here’s what I learned. The Administration has falsely asserted that the law requires them to separate children from their families, but there is no such requirement. As…
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How the toxic stress of family separation can harm a child
PBS By: Laura Santhanam Federal officials at the U.S.-Mexico border separated nearly 2,000 children from their families between April 19 and May 31. While it’s not clear how the political fight about the practice will play out, researchers do know how a traumatic event like being separated from a parent affects a child. … As soon…
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“Pain & Profit:” How Not to Do Medicaid Managed Care
We know that CMS Administrator Seema Verma doesn’t think Medicaid should cover “able-bodied” adults. But she does believe that coverage of the “society’s most vulnerable citizens” is the right thing for Medicaid to do. In her major policy address to state Medicaid directors last November, she opened with the stories of Richard, a para-pelagic, and…
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Congress Proposes Fix to Provide Medicaid for Former Foster Youth Up to Age 26
At long last, a fix in the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid coverage for former foster youth up to age 26 is back on the table in Congress. I last wrote about this issue almost three years ago, so it has taken far too long for Congress to correct a technical error in the drafting of…
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Family Separation at Border Exposes Children to Potentially Irreparable Harm
Recently, the Administration announced a change in immigration policy that has resulted in at least 700 children being separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border since October 1. Historically, crossing the border illegally was considered a civil offense and parents were able to stay with their children while legal proceedings were carried out (for…
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Trump Administration Will Drive Up Child Uninsured Rates if Public Charge Guidance is Issued
[Editor’s Note: On September 22, 2018, the Department of Homeland Security posted a draft regulation that would change the public charge test. The posted draft is different from “leaked” versions analyzed here in several key respects, and the conclusions of this blog post should not be used in reference to the September 22 posting. The posted draft…
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New Report Documents Impact of Immigration Debate on Children’s Health and Development
The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) released a new report on the impact of ongoing immigration policy debates on young children. It’s an upsetting but important report to read, documenting the findings from interviews of more than 150 childhood educators and parents in six states (CA, GA, IL, NM, NC, and PA). This…
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Pediatricians Explain How Immigration Policy Intersects with Public Health and Health and Well-Being of Children
As pediatricians, we have the privilege of celebrating with families when a child is healthy, and supporting them through difficult and sometimes heartbreaking situations. We are especially moved to empathize with, and advocate for, families facing seemingly insurmountable challenges. Recently, our thoughts have been with our immigrant patients and families, in particular those who will…
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New Data Shows Child Health Coverage Rate Racial Disparities are Narrowing
Last month, the Center for Children and Families reported that almost 2 million children have gained health insurance since the implementation of the major provisions of the Affordable Care Act. More good news from our colleagues at the Commonwealth Fund: in their analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, researchers found that racial…
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New York Advocates Explore What Children Need in “First 1,000 Days”
In August, New York State convened a “First 1,000 Days” on Medicaid initiative, to generate recommendations to improve health for young children covered by Medicaid – with explicit interest in outcomes that are long-term and cross-sector, extending beyond health and medical issues. I am helping to lead this effort, which involves dozens of leaders and…
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Cutting Medicaid Unpopular Among Republicans, Democrats and Independents
I’ve written before about how popular the Medicaid program has become and how firmly opposed the public is to cutting Medicaid. One unanticipated outcome of the last two months of debate on in Congress around bills that would have cut Medicaid substantially in the process of “repealing” the Affordable Care Act has been the willingness…
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CHIP Benefit Standards Won’t Protect Consumers in Graham-Cassidy Plan
Listening to the sponsors of Graham-Cassidy suggests that coverage for low-income individuals will be based on CHIP benefit standards and, of course, everyone loves CHIP, right? In fact, the proposed legislation does NOT ensure that Marketplace and Medicaid expansion enrollees will get benefits that are equivalent to CHIP in a given state. Nor does it…
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Top Five Threats to Child Welfare from the Senate Health Care Repeal Proposal
The Senate’s proposal to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and to sharply cut Medicaid payments to states through so-called per capita caps can sound very abstract to social workers and policymakers coping with the day-to-day tragedies and crises of child welfare. But these disastrous changes could take a major step toward becoming law after…
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The Risk of Letting Politicians, Not Pediatricians, Determine Children’s Health Care
Fifty years ago, after learning that half the young men drafted for the Vietnam War failed baseline health exams, the federal government instituted Medicaid’s comprehensive, pediatrician-recommended benefit standard for children known as Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment (EPSDT). The federal benefit standard in Medicaid ensures that low-income and vulnerable children receive the health care services…
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First Steps: A Spotlight on Health and Developmental Screenings for Young Texans
By Adriana Kohler and Rebecca Hornbach, Texans Care for Children Every family looks forward to their child’s first smile, first step, and first words. Routine well-child visits and developmental screenings allow doctors and families to monitor a child’s health and development and celebrate these kinds of milestones. Ongoing screenings for young children also help identify…
