Strategic partnerships for outreach and enrollment: Filling in insurance gaps for Florida's military children and families.

Military-provided health insurance does not adequately cover children with special needs and children of veterans. Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) can help eliminate insurance gaps, if promoted within the military community. This manuscript describes a Military Outreach Program to educate and reach Florida military families about insurance.

Medicaid and CHIP Premiums and Access to Care: A Systematic Review.

BACKGROUND: Premiums are required in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program in many states. Effects of premiums are raised in policy debates. OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to review effects of premiums on children's coverage and access. DATA SOURCES: PubMed was used to search academic literature from 1995 to 2014. STUDY SELECTION: Two reviewers initially screened studies by using abstracts and titles, and 1 additional reviewer screened proposed studies. Included studies focused on publicly insured children, evaluated premium changes in at least 1 state/local program, and used longitudinal or repeated cross-sectional data with pre/postchange measures. DATA EXTRACTION: We identified 263 studies of which 17 met inclusion criteria. RESULTS: Four studies examined population-level coverage effects by using national survey data, 11 studies examined trends in disenrollment and reenrollment by using administrative data, and 2 studies measured additional outcomes. No eligible studies evaluated health status effects. Increases in premiums were associated with increased disenrollment rates in 7 studies that permitted comparison. Larger premium increases and stringent enforcement tended to have larger effects on disenrollment. At a population level, premiums reduce public insurance enrollment and may increase the uninsured rate for lower-income children. Little is known about effects of premiums on spending or access to care, but 1 study reveals premiums are unlikely to yield substantial revenue. LIMITATIONS: Effect sizes were difficult to compare across studies with administrative data. CONCLUSIONS: Public insurance premiums often increase disenrollment from public insurance and may have unintended consequences on overall coverage for low-income children.

Spotlight on Express Lane Eligibility (ELE): A Tool to Improve Enrollment and Renewal.

OBJECTIVE: We examine a new simplification policy, Express Lane Eligibility (ELE), introduced by the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (CHIPRA), to understand ELE's effects on enrollment, renewal, and administrative costs. METHODS: Beginning in January 2012 and lasting through June 2013, we conducted 2 rounds of phone interviews with 38 state administrators and staff in 8 states that implemented ELE in Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), or both; we also conducted case studies in these same states, resulting in 136 in-person interviews. We collected administrative data on enrollments and renewals processed through ELE methods from the 8 states. RESULTS: ELE was adopted in different ways; the method of adoption influenced how many children were served and administrative savings. Automatic ELE processes, which enable states to use eligibility findings from partner agencies to automatically enroll or renew children, serve the most children and generate, on average, $1 million annually in administrative savings. Given the size of renewal caseloads and the recurring nature of renewal, using ELE for renewals holds substantial promise for administrative savings and keeping children covered. CONCLUSIONS: Automatic ELE processes are a best practice for using ELE. However, because Congress has not yet made ELE a permanent policy option, states are discouraged from adopting this more efficient method of eligibility determination and redeterminations. Making ELE permanent would support states that have already adopted the policy; in addition, ELE could support the transition of children to Medicaid or exchanges should CHIP not be funded after September 30, 2015.

The search for a national child health coverage policy.

Thirty-eight percent of US children depend on publicly financed health insurance, reflecting both its expansion and the steady erosion of employment-based coverage. Continued funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is an immediate priority. But broader reforms aimed at improving the quality of coverage for all insured children, with a special emphasis on children living in low-income families, are also essential. This means addressing the "family glitch," which bars premium subsidies for children whose parents have access to affordable self-only employer-sponsored benefits. It also means addressing the quality of health plans sold in the individual and small-group markets-whether or not purchased through the state and federal exchanges-that are governed by the "essential health benefit" standard of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In this article we examine trends in coverage and the role of Medicaid and CHIP. We also consider how the ACA has shaped child health financing, and we discuss critical issues in the broader insurance market and the need to ensure plan quality, including the scope of coverage, use of a pediatric medical necessity standard that emphasizes growth and development, the structure of pediatric provider networks, and attention to the quality of pediatric health care.

The impact of recent CHIP eligibility expansions on children's insurance coverage, 2008-12.

Following the reauthorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in 2009, fifteen states raised their CHIP income eligibility thresholds to further reduce uninsurance among children. We examined the impact of these expansions on uninsurance, public insurance, and private insurance among children who became newly eligible for CHIP after the expansions. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we estimated that the expansions reduced uninsurance by 1.1 percentage points among the newly eligible, cutting their uninsurance rate by nearly 15 percent. Public coverage increased by 2.9 percentage points, with variations in take-up among the states. A better understanding of these state-level differences in take-up could inform efforts to enroll children who remain uninsured but are eligible for CHIP. CHIP is up for reauthorization in 2015, and further funding will be needed to maintain the program, which provides insurance to children who might not have access to affordable private coverage.