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Home > Child Physical & Behavioral Health > State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) > DC Hill and Columbus Policy Briefing on Medicaid/SCHIP | ||||||||||||||||||
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DC Hill and Columbus Policy Briefing on Medicaid/SCHIP
Voices partners with Cincinnati Children’s and Georgetown University Health Policy Institute to hold a policy briefing on children health in Washington DC and in Columbus Ohio. Voices held it’s inigural hill briefing on April 16, 2008 in front of a standing room only crowd. A similar briefing was held in Columbus on April 24, 2008 for State Legislators, staff, Administration and partners. Attendees obtained an overview of why Ohio needs healthcare for its children and their families. The briefing focused on a directive released 8-17-07 by Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that impacts the implementation of SCHIP expansions supported in a bipartisan manner by the Ohio Legislature. The CMS directive is prohibiting the expansion from being implemented, leaving 32,000 Ohio children waiting on health care coverage. Participants were able to put a face to the CMS directive situation by hearing from Margaret Demko. Ms. Demko shared her story of the challenges her family faces because they cannot secure coverage for their daughter Emily. The family was counting down the days until January 1, 2008 when the expansion was scheduled to take affect. As Ohio continues to wait for action on the CMS directive, Emily waits with her therapy needs growing with each passing day. An update was provided by Cindy Mann from the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute Center for Children and Families on national policy impacting Medicaid/SCHIP. Mann illustrated how the CMS directive is not only affecting Ohio, but currently is impacting 6 other states and 14 states that will be affected by August 2008. Tens of thousands of children have already lost out on the promise of coverage. The is an opportunity to affect this CMS situation in the current Congress. The longer term goal is to build on the strong, successful record that has been experienced by SCHIP in the past. At the Ohio briefing, John Corlett, Ohio’s Medicaid Director shared his insights at our Columbus briefing on the impact for Ohio’s child health expansions. Mr. Corlett highlighted the implementation of the expansions implemented in 2008. The expansion of coverage to Foster children until the age of 21 went into effect in January and participants are enrolling in the coverage. Additionally, the Children’s Buy In Program (CBI) went into affect April 1, 2008 and is currently accepting applications. The Administration continues to work with CMS providing documentation requests and to secure approval to move forward with expansions. Dr. Lisa Simpson and Dr. Gerry Fairbrother with Child Policy Research Center at Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center shared their report on Health Insurance and Children’s Health: What We Know About the Role SCHIP. The brief covers the effects of SCHIP expansions, insuring the eligible uninsured and improving the performance and quality of SCHIP and SCHIP financed services. SCHIP has been successful in leading to improved access to care, improved use of care, increased parental peace of mined and decreased levels of unmet needs. The briefings concluded with a call to action by Amy Swanson, executive director of Voices. Swanson encouraged participants to contact Congress and urge them to place a moratorium on the 8-17 CMS directive. The time has come for action. Each day this situation continues is one more day 32,000 Ohio children like Emily go without adequate health coverage. The materials from the April 24th briefing are available in the links to the right. |
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