- May 11, 2012 Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) Check out our new blog posting on Children's Mental Health Awareness Week and how the Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid to foster youth up to age 26 will improve needed access to mental health services.
- April 20, 2012 What if Chairman Ryan’s Medicaid Block Grant Had Taken Effect in 2001? Federal Medicaid Funds Would Have Fallen by 35 Percent or More in Most States, by Half in Some, by 2010 This article from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities outlines what the effects of the Ryan Budget as adopted by the House would have been over the past decade if the proposed Medicaid block granting was in place.
- April 12, 2012 ACA Federal Funds Tracker This online tool tracks funds received by the states, local governments, employers, community organizations, and other entities to implement provisions in the Affordable Care Act. Click on any state for a profile of its health reform-related grant info.
- April 3, 2012 2012 County Health Rankings County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a program managed in-part by Community Catalyst, has released its county-by-county rankings for 2012. To see how your county stacks up, begin by selecting your state on the map and choosing the health measure of choice.
- March 31, 2012 Public Insurance Programs and Children with Special Health Care Needs This tutorial from the Catalyst Center gives a broad overview of Medicaid and CHIP, as well as detail about opportunities to improve services for children with special health care needs through communication and collaboration with Medicaid and CHIP staff.
- March 27, 2012 Governors' Budgets for FY 2013 -- What is Proposed for Medicaid? This report provides Medicaid highlights from governors' proposed state budgets, which include an array of policy actions to control costs but also some targeted investments in areas such as long-term care & health IT. Links to proposed budgets included.
- March 21, 2012 Don’t Forget What the Affordable Care Act is Doing for Former Foster Youth (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) Check out our new joint blog with Aisha Hunter of the Annie E. Casey foundation on the ways the Affordable Care Act is helping children in the foster care system.
- March 15, 2012 A Guide to the Medicaid Appeals Process This background brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation provides a comprehensive look at the appeals process for the Medicaid program, which differs significantly from those available through the Medicare program and private health insurance.
- March 15, 2012 MACPAC March 2012 Report to the Congress on Medicaid and CHIP MACPAC's March 2012 Report focuses on several Congressional priority issues surrounding Medicaid and CHIP. The Report Summary provided on pages 1-7 offers a helpful place to start for the comprehensive research and recommendations that follow.
- March 16, 2012 Health-e-App Public Access: A New Online Path to Children's Health Care Coverage in California In light of states' ongoing push for online enrollment options, this report examines the impact, functionality and user experience associated with Health-e-App, California's new publicly accessible online application for its Medicaid and CHIP programs.
- February 29, 2012 Hospital Community Benefits after the ACA: Partnerships for Community Health Improvement This brief describes several different types of partnerships between hospitals and local community or health agencies including an initiative of Children's Hospital Boston and how these activities relate to community benefits provisions of the ACA.
- February 7, 2012 Medicaid Report Card This webtool will help you propose budget-saving alternatives to harmful Medicaid cuts. Just click on your state to get a customized list of policies your state could enact to reduce costs while maintaining or even improving patient care.
- February 7, 2012 Health Insurance 101 This go-to resource on private insurance provides an overview, information about ACA provisions, other national laws and key regulation concepts.
- January 27, 2012 Recent Developments in Nutrition Policy Affecting Child Health: A Roundup (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) The end of 2011 and beginning of 2012 saw significant developments in nutrition policy affecting children. From new school meal requirements to food marketing guidelines, NEACH's latest blog post tracks the ever-changing landscape of nutrition policy.
- January 26, 2012 Farm Bill Policy Brief The federal farm bill contains funding and authorization for a number of nutrition related programs that impact child health and obesity this paper details the ways in which NEACH would like to see the bill develop to combat childhood obesity.
- January 18, 2012 Performing Under Pressure: Annual Findings of a 50-State Survey of Eligibility, Enrollment, Renewal, And Cost-Sharing Policies in Medicaid and CHIP, 2011-2012 The Kaiser Family Foundation and the Georgetown Center for Children and Families released their new 50 state survey on CHIP and Medicaid programs. The report highlights important trends including increases in coverage and streamlined applications.
- January 10, 2012 Oh so close…(Health Policy Hub Blog Post) Read our new blog about how New England states could use electronic applications and renewals to secure health insurance for even more children.
- January 10, 2012 Early Childhood Adversity, Toxic Stress, and the Role of the Pediatrician: Translating Developmental Science Into Lifelong Health This Policy Statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics explores the role of toxic stress in child development and health. The effects of toxic stress are demonstrated to cause lifelong health and social issues.
- December 16, 2011 The Affordable Care Act is Keeping Young Adults Healthy for the Holidays (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) Read our new blog post about how the Affordable Care Act is keeping 2.5 Million young adults healthy this holiday season.
- December 14, 2011 An Independent Evaluation of Rhode Island’s Global Waiver The Lewin Group, a healthcare consulting firm, released a report which confirmed that Rhode Island's global Medicaid waiver has saved about $23 million over three years.
- December 14, 2011 Children's Dental Servicse in the HUSKY program Connecticut Voices for Children released a report analyzing changes in the HUSKY dental program, showing that in 2009-2010, the number and percentage of children who receive dental services increased over the previous risk-based managed care program.
- November 30, 2011 Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program Buffer the Impact of the Recession on Children Read our new blog post about the importance of Medicaid and CHIP to maintaining children's health coverage during the recession. The blog discusses findings from a new Georgetown Center for Children and Families report.
- November 18, 2011 RIte Smiles Results Rhode Island KIDS COUNT has released a new report – RIte Smiles Results, summarizing the success of RIte Smiles, Rhode Island’s managed oral health program for children with Medicaid coverage.
- November 18, 2011 RIte Care Results Rhode Island KIDS COUNT has released a new report – RIte Care Results – which details the many successes of RIte Care, Rhode Island's Medicaid and CHIP program.
- November 7, 2011 2011 Children's Health Care Summit presentation: Creating an Elevator Speech Worksheet
- November 7, 2011 2011 Children's Health Care Summit presentation: Creating Your Elevator Speech
- November 7, 2011 2011 Children's Health Care Summit presentation: Shape Up Somerville
- November 7, 2011 2011 Children's Health Care Summit presentation: Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation
- November 7, 2011 2011 Children's Health Care Summit presentation: The Boston Foundation, Addressing Childhood Obesity
- November 7, 2011 2011 Children's Health Care Summit presentation: New England 101
- November 7, 2011 2011 Children's Health Care Summit presentation: Coverage for children: opportunities and challenges under the ACA
- November 7, 2011 2011 Children's Health Care Summit presentation: Coordinating Coverage for Children Across Medicaid, CHIP, the Basic Health Plan and the Exchange in 2014 and Beyond
- November 7, 2011 2011 Children's Health Care Summit presentation: The Current Federal Health Care Debate: What it Means for Children’s Health
- October 11, 2011 New Steps in the Fight Against Childhood Obesity Patrick Tigue discusses the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) new Childhood Obesity Demonstration Project. The Project was created by the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act and funded through the Affordable Care Act.
- August 22, 2011 Childhood Obesity Policy Agenda NEACH is confident that there is an opportunity to make a meaningful impact on child health quality through addressing the childhood obesity epidemic with proactive policy change.
- August 17, 2011 How the Affordable Care Act Helps Youth Aging Out of Foster Care The extension of Medicaid coverage to youth aging out of the foster care system is another example of how the Affordable Care Act is full of commonsense reforms that enhance access to care for those who need it most.
- August 10, 2011 It’s Time to Reauthorize Funding to Train Pediatricians (and Use Funding to Train Other Physicians More Effectively) (Health Policy Blog Post) It’s hard to imagine how children can stay healthy if there aren’t enough pediatricians to take care of them.
- July 29, 2011 Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education Payment Program: Past Successes and Future Opportunities for Improvement This paper concisely outlines the past success of CHGME, illustrates why it is still needed, and offers ideas about how to improve the program while continuing the nation’s investment in it.
- June 22, 2011 Solving the Specialty Care Issues for Medicaid and CHIP Children (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) addresses access to outpatient specialty care for children on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
- June 14, 2011 The Complexity of Covering Children (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) A challenge for keeping kids covered will be dealing with “complex coverage situations” - scenarios in which children are not covered by the same insurance program as their parent(s) or do not live in the same household as at least one parent.
- May 26, 2011 Vermont Takes Steps Down the Single-Payer Path (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin signed H.202 into law, which puts his state on a path toward creating the first single-payer health care system in the nation.
- May 17, 2011 Recent Polls Find Strong Support for Taxing Sugar-Sweetened Beverages (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) Various proposals to tax SSBs as a means of reducing consumption and raising revenues for initiatives to fight childhood obesity have been the focus of intense discussion in 14 states during 2011 alone.
- May 9, 2011 On This Mother’s Day, the Affordable Care Act Keeps Working for Our Children (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) Most young adults under 26 are eligible to remain on their parents’ plans if they don’t yet have access to employer-sponsored plans.
- April 11, 2011 Ryan’s Plan CHIP-ing Away at Children’s Coverage (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s Federal Fiscal Year 2012 budget blueprint, dubiously titled The Path to Prosperity, has damaging implications for children’s health.
- March 3, 2011 ACA Protections Go to Campus (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) A new proposed rule helps ensure that students who purchase a health plan through their college will be able to benefit from the same basic consumer insurance protections in place for all individual market plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
- February 10, 2011 $25 Million to Tackle Childhood Obesity in Medicaid, CHIP, and Beyond (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, $25 million in funding was made available for CHIPRA's childhood obesity demonstration grants.
- February 4, 2011 Happy Second Anniversary, CHIPRA! (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) CHIPRA provides states with incentives (in the form of bonus payments) to enact enrollment and retention simplification measures to improve coverage rates, offers grants for conducting innovative outreach, enrollment and quality-improvement activities.
- February 3, 2011 Taking Care of Business… and Children’s Health (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) We are pleased to announce the release of our new publication entitled Investing in Our Future: New England Business Leaders’ Views on Children’s Health Advocacy.
- February 2, 2011 Tell it Like it is (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) Telling one individual’s story might just be the most effective way to educate the public about the benefits of national health reform.
- January 11, 2011 New Medicaid/CHIP Report Finds Program Eligibility Maintained Despite Economic Downturn (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) Despite difficult economic times, forty-nine states maintained or invested in expansions or improvements in their eligibility and enrollment policies for their Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Programs (CHIP) in 2010.
- January 6, 2011 New Year, New CHIPRA Performance Bonuses (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) Kathleen Sebelius announced that she had awarded 15 states 2010 Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIPRA) performance bonuses for significantly increasing the number of children enrolled in Medicaid and streamlining enrollment and renewal processes.
- December 23, 2010 Insuring New England's Children: An Advocacy Success Story Presents strategies that New England advocates used to successfully increase children’s health insurance coverage rates, expand Medicaid and CHIP eligibility levels, and improve children’s health care programs.
- December 23, 2010 Investing in Our Future: New England Business Leaders' Views on Children's Health Advocacy Findings from a series of six focus group discussions held in 2008 with New England business leaders about their perspectives on children’s health and their interest in public policies that could improve health outcomes for children.
- December 15, 2010 Investing in Our Children (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) We’re excited to announce the release of Insuring New England’s Children: An Advocacy Success Story. This new publication chronicles the New England states’ successes in providing children with high-quality, affordable health coverage.
- December 8, 2010 An Important (and Imperfect) Child Nutrition Reauthorization Passes (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) During this lame-duck session of Congress, the House of Representatives took action and, against the odds, passed the child nutrition reauthorization bill.
- November 16, 2010 Notable News from the NEACH Children’s Health Care Summit 2010 (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) On October 26, the New England Alliance for Children’s Health (NEACH), an initiative of Community Catalyst, held its annual Children’s Health Care Summit in Manchester, New Hampshire.
- November 15, 2010 A New Push to Pass Child Nutrition Reauthorization (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) While there is no shortage of issues vying for the attention of Congress during the lame-duck session that begins this week, we believe reauthorizing the federal child nutrition programs should be near the top of the list.
- October 1, 2010 Insurers behaving badly (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) You may have heard that many health insurers across the country (including several major insurers such as WellPoint, UnitedHealth Group, Aetna, Cigna, and Humana) have been announcing the discontinuation of new child-only policies.
- September 21, 2010 Expanded Dependent Coverage Will Make a Difference (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) Young adults are now generally eligible for coverage under their parents’ health plan as long as they are under age 26 and have a parent with a plan that offers dependent coverage.
- September 13, 2010 What Makes Child Health Advocates Successful? (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) Eugene Lewit and Liane Wong of the David and Lucille Packard Foundation note the release of two issue briefs that report findings from an evaluation of the Foundation’s Insuring America’s Children: States Leading the Way (IAC) grantmaking program.
- September 8, 2010 Signing on to Advance Child Nutrition (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) The New England Alliance for Children’s Health is co-sponsoring a sign-on letter with the New England Consortium (NEC) that urges Congress to act swiftly and pass a strong child nutrition reauthorization (CNR) bill.
- September 3, 2010 Accepting the Challenge (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) Secretary of Health and Human Services Sebelius is urging leaders from across government and the private sector to join the Connecting Kids to Coverage Challenge.
- August 4, 2010 Three Cheers for Dependent Coverage Expansion! (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) While there are many provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that will benefit children and families, the expansion of dependent coverage to children up to age 26 is among the most important – especially in the short-term.
- June 2, 2011 Implementation for Kids (Health Policy Hub Blog Post) Have you been wondering how health reform implementation will affect children’s health care programs? We’ll, look no further than the New England Alliance for Children’s Health Implementation Website.
- May 23, 2010 Overview of Children’s Provisions in National Health Reform A list of some of the key provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that affect children.
- July 23, 2009 Pediatric Quality of Care Matrix and Menu The Matrix is a framework for thinking about pediatric quality from the point of view of the child and family and the Menu is a list of federal policy options to improve pediatric quality of care.
- July 23, 2009 Pediatric Quality Campaign Message Points Advocates can use these message points to raise awareness about pediatric quality among state and federal policy makers, as well as the general public.
- October 30, 2008 Almost There: Covering the Remaining Uninsured Children in Rhode Island This policy brief examines some of the strengths and limitations of the major sources of health insurance coverage for children in Rhode Island.
- March 23, 2007 New England CHIP Poll Report This 2,400 person New England-wide public opinion poll found that New England voters not only support their CHIP programs, the vast majority favor expanding CHIP to cover all children in their state.
