NHELP FACT SHEET HIGHLIGHTS THE FACES OF MEDICAID
The National Health Law Program (NHeLP) has a new fact sheet entitled “The Faces of Medicaid Expansion: Filling Gaps in Coverage” which highlights the types of individuals who have been helped most by the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). To learn more about the fact sheet or to download a copy check out our news item.
NHeLP also has a new blog post which looks at how the proposed Medicaid cuts under the American Health Care Act (AHCA) would affect special education. This blog post also includes state specific fact sheets for eight states (AK, AZ, CO, ME, MI, NV, OH & WV) on how these Medicaid cuts would affect those states directly. The blog post also has a fact sheet with national statistics.
The Kaiser Family Foundation has a new infographic which examines the role that Medicaid plays in providing care for children with special health care needs. To learn more about this infographic or to download a copy, check out our news item. Also, if you’re assisting a family with enrollment who has a child with special health care need, be sure to check out our fact sheet “What to Know When Assisting a Consumer who has a Child or Youth with Special Health Care Needs.”
The Kaiser Family Foundation also has a fact sheet which looks at Medicaid enrollment on the other end of the age spectrum. The fact sheet entitled “Enrollment of Medicaid Beneficiaries Ages 50 Plus, FY 2013” provides state-by-state data on the number of enrolled Medicaid beneficiaries over the age of 50.
A lot of the discussion on the AHCA has been on the issue of Medicaid and the restructuring that the AHCA would do to the program. The Alliance for Health Reform (AHR) conducted a webinar last week entitled “Where Medicaid Stands: From the AHCA to State Waivers.” The presentations from that webinar along with a video recording of it have been archived on AHR’s website.
If you’re interested in our advocacy efforts around the AHCA, then check out our Action Alert from last week. We also have two blog posts on how the AHCA would affect people with disabilities – one in March when the bill was originally introduced and one in May on the final version of the bill passed by the House. You can also view our NDNRC statement on health reform which we released after the elections last November. In the statement entitled “Preserve the Protections Provided by the Affordable Care Act,” we call on Congress and the Administration to protect provisions in the ACA which have benefited people with disabilities. The full statement can be found on our website, where it is also available in a PDF download, by clicking here.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced a new direct enrollment process for individuals that will allow them to complete their enrollment directly through a third-party website. Previously, consumers who attempted to enroll in a plan through a broker, agent or insurer’s website were redirected to healthcare.gov in order to complete the enrollment. To learn more about this, check out our news item which has links to the CMS press release as well as the official guidance from CMS on the new procedure. For further explanation, check out the blog post from Health Affairs on the new procedure.
The University of Washington, Healthy Aging & Physical Disability, Rehabilitation Research Training Center (RRTC) recently released a new plain language summary on “What Successful Aging Means to People with a Physical Disability.” The summary can be accessed here.
For some fun, if you think you understand the AHCA and what it would do to the ACA, then check out this quiz from the Kaiser Family Foundation on the AHCA.
Are you looking for local partners to help with outreach to the disability community? The NDNRC has Community Outreach Collaboratives (COCs) which work to increase collaborations in the community, dissemination and outreach efforts and enrollment of people with disabilities in the ACA marketplace. To find a COC, click here.
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