Key Takeaways from the Revised Graham-Cassidy Proposal and CBO Preliminary Analysis
The brief provides an overview of the most recent changes to the Graham-Cassidy repeal and replace proposal and a just-released preliminary analysis of the proposal by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). On September 13th, Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA)—along with Senators Dean Heller (R-NV) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA)—released a new proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). On September 25th, the sponsors released several updates to the proposed legislation. Also on September 25th, the CBO provided its preliminary analysis of one of the earlier versions of the bill.
Repeal and Replace: Overview of Graham-Cassidy’s Market-based Health Care Allotment
This brief provides an overview of the proposal developed by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and filed on July 27th as a substitute for the American Health Care Act passed by the House to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The proposal retains many features of the July 20th version of the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) released by Senate leadership (and rejected by the Senate on July 25th), including per capita caps on Medicaid spending and elimination of the individual and employer mandates.
Medicaid and Social Determinants of Health: Adjusting Payment and Measuring Outcomes
State policy makers are increasingly focused on social determinants of health (SDOH) because of the important influence of these determinants on health care outcomes and Medicaid spending. This issue brief digs into opportunities that states have to account for SDOH in Medicaid programs.
Why Per Capita Caps Aren’t Just Managed Care for States
The American Health Care Act (AHCA), as passed by the House of Representatives on May 4, 2016, would overhaul federal financing of state Medicaid programs, and for the first time, would cap federal Medicaid funding. As policymakers debate the potential implications of per capita caps, it has been suggested that per capita caps are really no different than Medicaid managed care—a concept with which states are fully familiar and well able to manage. This policy brief tests that hypothesis by examining the similarities and differences between the federal per capita cap and a state’s per capita “cap” in Medicaid managed care spending.
Medicaid’s Role in Public Emergencies and Health Crises
Medicaid’s unique and critical role in responding to events such as the opioid and HIV/AIDS epidemics, the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, the Flint, Michigan lead contamination crisis, and Hurricane Katrina are discussed in this brief.
State Strategies: Value-Based Payment for Medicaid Populations with Complex Care Needs
Driven to improve care coordination and contain costs by moving away from a volume-based payment model, an increasing number of states are implementing risk-based managed care programs to deliver long-term services and supports (LTSS). As the primary payer for LTSS, state Medicaid programs have a significant interest in ensuring that entities with which they contract deliver high quality and cost-effective care to members. This issue brief identifies ways states can learn from value-based payment models being applied elsewhere to create more accountability for the quality and cost of LTSS.
Impacts of ACA repeal on American Indian and Alaska Native Populations
American Indians and Alaska Natives could face a disproportionate impact in the event of ACA repeal. This report, authored by Dr. Donald Warne at North Dakota State University, in partnership with the National Indian Health Board, highlights the specific effects of ACA repeal.
Medicaid Expansion and Enhanced Match: How Proposals to Grandfather Medicaid Enrollees Could Impact States
Some federal proposals implement enrollment freezes for the Medicaid Expansion population, while grandfathering the enhanced match for enrollees that remain in the system. States have experiences with enrollment freezes in recent years and the changes in enrollment levels provide lessons for states moving forward. This issue brief, authored by the team at Manatt Health, highlights the experiences of three states and how enrollment freezes impact state Medicaid rolls.
Repealing Eligibility and Enrollment Modernization – What Would it Mean for States?
While the focus of debate regarding repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been on Marketplaces and the Medicaid expansion, myriad other provisions of the ACA are at risk of repeal—including those that streamline Medicaid eligibility and enrollment systems and implement a national, simplified standard for income eligibility. As of January 2016, 37 states are able to complete an eligibility determination in real time, defined as less than 24 hours, and among these, 11 states report that at least half of their applicants receive an eligibility determination in real time. The future of the ACA’s streamlined eligibility and enrollment-related provisions and the system improvements states have invested in to implement them are the subject of this issue brief.
Medicaid at a Crossroads: What’s at Stake for the Nation’s Largest Health Insurer
Because Medicaid is the single largest payer in every state, governors are using Medicaid to drive multi-payer reforms, including adoption of value-based payment methodologies and advancement of population health models. Proposals being considered by Congress and the new administration to repeal the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Medicaid expansion and implement limits on federal Medicaid funding through block grants and per capita caps could have a significant impact on these advances. This issue brief, developed by Manatt Health, considers how much states have accomplished to drive value in and through their Medicaid programs over the last 50 years, and most especially over the last five years, and what states stand to lose in terms of progress and innovation in their Medicaid programs and health care delivery systems if federal support for Medicaid is reduced.