Medicaid
kkrisberg | March 15, 2017As the Republicans push forward their abysmal Affordable Care Act replacement, much of the talk surrounding its impact focuses on insurance numbers and premium hikes. Those things are certainly important. But this is more important: The Republican plan will cause unnecessary suffering and preventable death.
How do we know this? Let’s start with the Congressional Budget Office report that scored the Republican replacement plan, titled the American Health Care Act. That report estimates that if the Republican plan is enacted, 14 million more people would be uninsured by 2018 than would have…
kkrisberg | January 27, 2017
We’re just a humble little public health blog. But we can still do our part. If you or someone you know need help getting health insurance coverage before next week’s enrollment deadline on Jan. 31, here are some good resources.
First, why do this? Because this week, the Trump administration abruptly canceled advertising and outreach scheduled to run during this final week of Affordable Care Act enrollment. Apparently, he even pulled ads that were already paid for. But, you can still enroll. According to Paul Demko at Politico:
(The Trump administration) is also halting all media outreach…
kkrisberg | October 28, 2016While health policy hasn’t been at the forefront of this year’s presidential election, the next person to sit in the White House could have a transformative effect on health care access, affordability and inequity. Of course, with so many variables in play, it’s hard to predict what either candidate could realistically accomplish on the health care front. However, a new report might provide some insightful clues.
Published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, the report complied results from 14 national public opinion polls from various sources and conducted as recently as…
kkrisberg | October 13, 2016If you look at the numbers, there’s no doubt that the Affordable Care Act is making a positive difference. In fact, just last month, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that the nation’s uninsured rate had hit a record low. At the same time, the health reform law wasn’t intended as a silver bullet and a number of problems remain. One of those problems is known as “churning.”
“Churning” describes changes in a person’s insurance coverage over time and it’s an issue that can have a significant impact on a patient’s continuity of care and health status. Of course, changes in insurance coverage are…
kkrisberg | May 31, 2016Everything’s bigger in Texas — including the number of Texans without health insurance. But thanks to the Affordable Care Act, the percentage of uninsured Texas residents has dropped by 30 percent. That means the Texas uninsured rate has hit its lowest point in nearly two decades.
In a new issue brief from Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, researchers report that the Texas uninsured rate dropped from 26 percent in September 2013 — before the ACA’s first open enrollment period — to 18 percent as of March 2016. The decline was observed among every age, income and ethnic group…
kkrisberg | May 5, 2016Just in time for Mother’s Day comes more good news from the Affordable Care Act: the rate of uninsured moms caring for kids younger than 19 has dropped to its lowest rate in nearly 20 years.
According to a new analysis from the Urban Institute released this month, the rate of uninsured moms fell 3.8 percentage points between 2013 and 2014 — that’s a decline about three times as large as any of the previous year-to-year changes observed since 1997. In sheer numbers, that means about 1.6 million moms gained health insurance. To give you even more perspective, consider that uninsurance rates…
kkrisberg | March 25, 2016Here’s what states get when they expand Medicaid: more savings, more revenue, more jobs, more access to care for their communities.
That’s the conclusion from a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation issue brief released this month that compared the differences between states that chose to expand Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act and those that opted out. Under the health reform law, the federal government will pay the entire cost of expanding state Medicaid programs up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level through 2016, phasing down to 90 percent by 2020. It’s a pretty good…
kkrisberg | November 25, 2015Public health insurance programs often get a bad rap, despite a growing positive evidence base on their patient care, quality and outcomes. Earlier this month, another study emerged that found Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program not only outperform private insurance when it comes to children’s preventive care, they can serve as a model of comprehensive children’s coverage.
Published in JAMA Pediatrics, the study is based on data from the U.S. National Surveys of Children’s Health between 2003 and 2012 — a sample of more than 80,000 children up to age 17 living in households…
kkrisberg | October 22, 2015More good news from the Affordable Care Act: Since it became the law of the land, uninsurance disparities between white, black and Hispanic residents have narrowed significantly.
In a study published this month in the journal Health Affairs, researchers found that by the fourth quarter of 2014, the uninsurance rate for Hispanic adults had fallen to 31.8 percent from about 40 percent in the third quarter of 2013. During the same time period, uninsurance among black adults declined from 25.5 percent to 17.2 percent, while uninsurance among white adults fell from 14.8 percent to 10.5 percent.…
kkrisberg | September 24, 2015In the U.S., the gap in life expectancy by income is getting wider. To be even clearer: Life expectancy for people with higher incomes has gone up over time, while life expectancy for people earning lower incomes has actually declined.
In “The Growing Gap in Life Expectancy by Income: Implications for Federal Programs and Policy Responses,” which the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine released last week, authors analyzed life expectancy patterns among Americans born in 1930 and compared them with projections among a group of Americans born in 1960. They found that top-…
kkrisberg | August 11, 2015One of the big criticisms that opponents of the Affordable Care Act love to trot out is its impact on the economy — one phrase you often hear is “job killer.” In fact, in 2011, Republicans in the House actually introduced legislation officially titled “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.” That bill didn’t make it far. However, a new report finds that “job-killing” isn’t just hyperbole; it’s just plain wrong.
Earlier this month, the Urban Institute released a new report on the ACA and employment, asking “Has the ACA been a job killer?” Authors Bowen Garrett and Robert Kaestner noted…
lborkowski | July 30, 2015On July 30th, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Social Security Amendment Act that created Medicare and Medicaid. At the signing ceremony, President Johnson enrolled President Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary and gave a speech on the importance of the legislation. The President’s description of the law’s impact describes the conditions it aimed to alleviate:
No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine. No longer will illness crush and destroy the savings that they have so carefully put away over a lifetime so that they might enjoy…
kkrisberg | May 12, 2015More than $30 million in Arkansas, $25.8 million in Kentucky, $105.5 million in Washington and $180 million in Michigan. That’s how much money just four states during just one fiscal year saved under their newly expanded Medicaid programs.
A recent report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) summarizes the benefits of Medicaid expansions on uninsurance rates, state health care spending and uncompensated care, finding that “contrary to critics’ claims that Medicaid expansion is financially unsustainable for states, there is increasing evidence that expansion has saved states…
kkrisberg | May 8, 2015Just another example of how cuts to health care funding simply shift the costs and endanger people’s health. This time it’s a study on the impact of eliminating adult dental coverage within the California Medicaid program. Not surprisingly, the cut resulted in a significant and immediate rise in people seeking help in hospital emergency departments.
While federal rules require Medicaid programs to cover children’s dental care, covering adult dental care is up to state policymakers. California lawmakers decided to stop offering dental care to adult Medicaid beneficiaries in 2009, which left…
kkrisberg | December 23, 2014With the second round of open enrollment now underway, the Affordable Care Act is expected to help narrow racial and ethnic disparities in insurance coverage, a new report finds. However, not all communities are predicted to benefit equally. Because nearly half of the country’s legislatures decided against expanding Medicaid eligibility, black Americans may continue to face difficulties finding quality, affordable health coverage.
This month, the Urban Institute’s Health Policy Center released a new report detailing racial and ethnic differences in insurance rates under the ACA. Using data…
lborkowski | December 15, 2014The latest issue of the journal Health Affairs focuses on children's health, and one of the major topics is health insurance for children. A look at the Kaiser Family Foundation's coverage statistics shows that in 2013, 49% of children ages 0 - 18 had employer-sponsored coverage, 39% were covered by Medicaid or another public program, 5% had other private coverage, and 8% were uninsured. There are three main ways US children get health insurance coverage:
Medicaid: The federal government pays a portion of healthcare costs for Medicaid beneficiaries, and in exchange requires that states extend…
kkrisberg | October 29, 2014Raising the federal minimum wage isn’t only good for workers — it’s good for the federal budget as well, according to a new issue brief from the Economic Policy Institute.
Released earlier this month, the policy brief details just how many low-wage workers have to depend on public assistance programs to make ends meet and how increasing the minimum wage could save billions in federal spending — and those billions could be redirected toward creating stronger, more resilient anti-poverty programs. The brief reports that about half of all workers earning less than $10.10 per hour, the new…
kkrisberg | May 27, 2014Late last year as many Americans purchased affordable health insurance for the first time, others opened their mailboxes to find notification that their coverage had been cancelled. The story erupted across media channels, as President Obama had promised that people could keep their plans, but the overall issue was presented with little perspective. Thankfully, a new study offers something that’s become seemingly rare these days: context.
Published in May in the journal Health Affairs, the study examined the stability of the nonemployer-based insurance market in the years before the…
kkrisberg | May 15, 2014$569 million. That’s how much revenue community health centers will miss out on because their state legislators decided not to expand Medicaid eligibility. The loss means that many community health centers will continue to struggle to serve all those in need, others will have to cut back on services and some could be forced to shut down altogether.
“In some ways, it’s status quo,” Peter Shin told me. “But for many of them, it’s a bleak status quo.”
Shin co-authored a recent report on the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on uninsured patients at community health centers, zeroing in on…
lborkowski | April 25, 2014I've been writing a lot about the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, mainly from the perspective of Medicaid as a route to health insurance for low-income US residents. As a recent Wonkblog post from University of Chicago professor Harold Pollack reminded me, though, Medicaid is also an essential source of care for people who require long-term care -- or, in Medicaid language "long-term services and support (LTSS)" -- due to disabling conditions. When a person needs daily assistance with routine tasks, the costs can quickly eat up a family's income and savings, so Medicaid is a…