CIRCUIT COURT REJECTS MEDICAID WORK REQUIREMENTS
Last Friday, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that CMS exceeded its authority when it approved Arkansas’s waiver request to add work requirements to its Medicaid program. Our news item has a link to the press release from the National Health Law Program (NHeLP) which was one of the organizations that was involved with this litigation. We’ve also added this news item to last month’s blog post which summarizes all our news items and resources on the developments around what states are doing in the area of Medicaid work requirements.
You can also learn more about the DC Circuit Court of Appeals decision by checking out the blog post from Health Affairs.
While Open Enrollment Year 7 (OE7) has concluded, it’s a good time to remind you that Medicaid enrollment goes all year long! AAHD has joined Community Catalyst and other partners in conducting outreach for OE7 to educate individuals about enrolling for coverage in 2020. Community Catalyst has an Outreach Hub which includes resources to use by those who are doing enrollment outreach. The Outreach Hub includes graphics like the one below which highlights the financial benefit of Medicaid. To go directly to graphics this one, check out this page of the Outreach Hub. To learn more about the project we are doing with Community Catalyst, check out our earlier news item.
Last month, CMS issued guidance to states on what it would consider if states wanted to implement a Medicaid block grant for their state. Block grants in the Medicaid program would change the formula for how the federal government reimburses states for running their Medicaid program. To learn more about the CMS proposal or for links to the CMS letter, press release or fact sheet, check out our news item.
AAHD has significant concerns about the Medicaid block grant proposal and what it would mean for people with disabilities. See our blog post for AAHD’s statement of opposition and our news item on resources from other organizations. This week, we added a blog post from Community Catalyst which was written as an open letter to state Medicaid directors on why the block grant proposal would be harmful for those with substance use disorder.
If you missed it, at the end of January, CMS released the proposed Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters (NBPP) for the 2021 plan year. For links to the proposed rules and other related documents from CMS, check out our news item. Comments to the proposed NBPP are due March 2, 2020.
A new post written by the Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms (CHIR) and appearing on the State Health and Value Strategies website highlights some of the concerns with the proposed NBPP.
ADvancing States is pleased to announce the release of the fourth module of the HCBS Business Acumen Center Toolkit, “Disability Network Business Strategies: A Roadmap to Financial and Programmatic Sustainability for Community-Based Organizations”. This resource is a ‘how-to’ guide designed to help Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) evaluate, plan, develop, implement and monitor strategies to help build and sustain their organizations in various business climates. You can access the full HCBS Business Acumen Center Toolkit or learn more about the center on the HCBS Business Acumen Center website. The fourth module addresses what CBOs can do to grow and develop their strategic plans. To read the full announcement about the new module and other modules available in the toolkit, check out our news item.
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. You can find a COC, on the COC page of our website.
Archives of our weekly updates are available on the NDNRC website.