School superintendents confirm Medicaid’s key role in schools, especially for children with disabilities. In a recent survey of 1,000 superintendents, 57 percent of districts reported that they’d have trouble meeting special education mandates without Medicaid funding. That’s just one...
off the charts
POLICY INSIGHT
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
Kentucky’s Medicaid Waiver Gives State Unprecedented Power to Raise Premiums, Impose Fines
March 5, 2018
While giving Kentucky the unprecedented ability to require Medicaid beneficiaries to work or engage in work-related activities through the state’s Medicaid waiver, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) gave the state additional first-of-its-kind...
Trump Should Have Proposed “Money Follows the Person” Funding
February 23, 2018
In his 2019 budget, President Trump missed an opportunity to propose reauthorizing the Money Follows the Person (MFP) demonstration, which since 2007 has helped over 75,000 Medicaid beneficiaries in 44 states who need long-term services and supports transition from institutions back to their own...
Kentucky’s Waiver Will Increase Uncompensated Care for Hospitals, Safety Net Providers
February 13, 2018
Kentucky’s Medicaid waiver, which the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently approved, jeopardizes not just coverage for hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries but also the finances of hospitals and other safety net providers. Rather than test new ways to advance Medicaid’s core mission of ensuring that low-income people can get the health care they need —...
Trump Reversal of Medicaid Family Planning Guidance Doesn’t Change Federal Law
January 22, 2018
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently rescinded its guidance of April 2016 reaffirming Medicaid law’s “free choice of provider” provision, which allows beneficiaries to receive family planning services from all qualified providers of such services. CMS’ reversal raises concerns that...
Medicaid Criteria Changes Don’t Ensure Waivers Will Further Program Objectives
November 13, 2017
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has revised its criteria for approving demonstration projects (or “waivers”) for states to test new ways to deliver health care to low-income people through Medicaid — and, in doing so, it signaled that the Trump Administration plans to approve proposals that won’t promote Medicaid’s objectives.
Medicaid’s core mission is to provide...
Ending Medicaid’s Retroactive Coverage Harms Iowa’s Medicaid Beneficiaries and Providers
November 9, 2017
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has granted a section 1115 waiver to let Iowa end Medicaid payments for medical costs that beneficiaries incurred up to three months before enrolling in Medicaid if they were eligible for Medicaid during that period. As we...
Cassidy-Graham’s Restrictions on Provider Taxes Threaten State Medicaid Programs
September 21, 2017
Like the bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that the Senate rejected in July, the bill from Senators Bill Cassidy and Lindsey Graham radically restructures Medicaid financing by converting federal funding to a per capita cap starting in 2020. But Cassidy-Graham actually goes further than the prior repeal bill by entirely...
Like Prior Repeal Bills, Cassidy-Graham Puts Coverage for American Indians, Alaska Natives at Risk
September 20, 2017
Update, September 25: We’ve updated this post.
American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) benefit greatly from the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) coverage expansions, with 290,000 AI/ANs now enrolled in Medicaid, as we’ve explained. The most recent...
Cassidy-Graham Would End Medicaid Expansion in 2020, Leave Millions of Low-Income Adults Uninsured
September 19, 2017
Update, September 25: We’ve updated this post.
The latest version of the plan from Senators Bill Cassidy and Lindsey Graham to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would still end Medicaid expansion in 2020 and make even deeper cuts to Medicaid than prior Republican repeal legislation, such as the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA). Like the BCRA, the latest Cassidy...
