Congress Forgot About The Kids: CHIP Was Not Reauthorized

You forgot about the kids!

That is correct.

U.S. Congress forgot about the kids.

The reauthorization for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) was not reauthorized.

What does that mean?

#MedicareForAll

Either that or poor kids are going to have to rely upon foster care to access health care services, which will cost a whole bunch more due to the inherent fraudulent billing of Medicaid.

Besides, failure to provide for the necessary needs of the child is considered abuse and neglect.

Which States Are Hit Hardest By Failure To Fund Children’s Health Program

Over the weekend, Congress allowed funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which covers nearly 9 million children in low-income families, to lapse—failing to pass a reauthorization by Saturday’s deadline after spending most of the year attempting to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The expiration of the program will not affect all states equally. Some are already scrambling to move money around to make sure no child sees their coverage lapse while others have a healthy amount in reserves that will last them well into next year if Congress does not act.

Though the Senate will hold a markup on the reauthorization on Wednesday, its passage remains uncertain. The House has not yet unveiled its version of the bill, and a House Democratic aide told TPM that while negotiations are ongoing, the parties are still fighting over whether to maintain the same level of the federal funding match for CHIP and whether to require cuts to other parts of the federal budget to offset CHIP’s cost.

“We have yet to reach an agreement,” the aide said. “It’s pretty upsetting that the time tradeoff has been an effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.”

According to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 48 of 50 states, including DC, assumed Congress would reauthorize CHIP when they wrote their 2018 state budgets. That mistaken trust in Congress is already having major consequences.

At least 10 states are on track to run out of money by the end of 2017, and even those that can hold out into 2018 will pay a price.

Joan Alker, the executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families and an expert on CHIP, told TPM that the severity depends on how long lawmakers drag their feet.

“If Congress can get it done in the next couple weeks, we could avoid some of the worst consequences,” she said. “It’s hard to disentangle what the consequences will be, but we will certainly start seeing them in November.”

Some states have laws on the books that would force them cap enrollment or end health coverage for the CHIP population altogether if federal funding lapses. Others are anticipating cuts to other CHIP-funded programs, including coverage for low-income pregnant women and children.

Without knowing when Congress will act, Alker says several states are torn about whether to send out notices to families warning that coverage could be cut off or enrollment frozen.

“States only have bad choices here. They don’t want to alarm families but at some point they have to act,” she explained. “Congress has been talking all year about taking away health coverage from families, so if a family gets a notice that says, ‘Your coverage maybe taken away,’ there are many reasons for them to think it’s a strong possibility. It is all very bad news.”

Here are the states that may be hit the hardest:

Utah

Utah’s senior Republican senator Orrin Hatch (pictured above whispering with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell) chairs the committee in charge of funding CHIP. He told reporters last week that the program will be reauthorized “shortly,” but that will not be soon enough for his struggling state. Utah officials have said that they will run out of funding by the end of the year and are making plans to close the program, impacting upwards of 20,000 children.

Minnesota

The commissioner of Minnesota’s Department of Human Services, Emily Piper, told her congressional delegation in September that without renewed federal funding, she will have to take “extraordinary measures” to prevent people from being kicked off of CHIP.

“The pregnant women covered by CHIP would be at risk of losing coverage altogether,” she wrote. “However, we are exploring ways to continue coverage temporarily by carrying over FY 2017 CHIP funds so that their prenatal and postpartum care continues uninterrupted. This action, however, comes with a significant financial penalty.”

That penalty, she estimates, will be a $10 million hit to the state’s general fund.

Arizona

Arizona’s CHIP funding, which provides coverage for more than 22,000 children, will run out by the end of the year if Congress does not pass a bill. Because the state passed a bill in 2016 that would force its CHIP program to halt new enrollment if the federal government eliminates funding, the state is already warning health insurers and families that they may implement an enrollment freeze.

The last time this happened, during the Great Recession in 2009, the rate of uninsured children in Arizona climbed sharply.

Texas

Texas, which temporarily waived the fees families have to pay for CHIP in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, could burn through its budget sooner than projected, threatening health insurance for 390,000 children.

West Virginia

State law requires West Virginia to shut down its CHIP program if federal funding levels drop by a certain amount. They are currently scrambling to get a legal interpretation of whether that means this week or when the state exhausts its reserve funding in early 2018.

The state expects that about one-third of children enrolled in CHIP would become uninsured with closure of the program, unable to enroll either in a parent’s employee insurance plan or on the individual market.

Nevada

Should Congress’ inaction continue, Nevada is preparing to freeze enrollment on Nov. 1 and end coverage altogether on Nov. 30 for about 27,000 children.

“We’d have to look at our options for limiting the services that are available,” Nevada’s deputy administrator for Medicaid Cody Phinney told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

“If Congress does not quickly reauthorize CHIP, states like Nevada will need to either send notices of termination to program beneficiaries or develop alternative funding,” Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) warned in a statement.

The state legislature has not yet called a special session to plan for the potential shortfall.

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Clinton Foundation and Its Child Welfare Issues With Norway and Australia

This entire Clinton Foundation investigation is about Medicaid Fraud in Child Welfare.

Period.

Here, we have Norway and Australia pulling out of its contribution agreements with the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) by and through its child welfare programs.

Norway Slashes Clinton Foundation Donations By 87% As Political Clout Dries Up

Australia Cuts Clinton Foundation Donations To $0

The money to contribute to the Clinton Foundation originated in the generation of false claims and manipulation of the public record through political campaign activities to ensure its child welfare schemes continued, exempt and excluded from public scrutiny, fraudulently maximized revenue by billing the taxpayers, in the best interests of the child.

These nations would, in turn, enter memorandum of understandings to implement these same child welfare schemes in economically emerging nations to further generate, leverage and hedge in their so-called regime change schemes.

  

This is the new form of public record, the internet, including Wikileaks.

The Library of Congress has been so slow and far behind, with an extremely out-dated and completely political Copyright Office because electronic communications have never been even addressed, hence, the Gmail situation.

NSA is in possess of all this information, and it is my belief that it is the one who has been pushing the proverbial envelope on testing the boundaries of ethical governance and the technological issues dealing with oversight of data.

Quintessentially, the question is, "Who is the recordkeeper."

On the issue of child welfare, Legally Kidnapped is the recordkeeper because no one else will do it, so this is what I did.

I did a quick and dirty search on Norway and Australia child welfare systems and it is really, really, not good.

In fact, it is so bad that it imported the child protection model from Michigan and transposed the entire U.S. child welfare system.

CAPTA

PRWORA

ASFA

Australia and Clinton Foundation Memorandum of Understanding in Child Welfare Programs by Beverly Tran on Scribd

If the media will not cover this, then we shall through social media.

This is a public investigation where the public can engage, debate, share and directly participate in the investigations.

The investigation must be conducted in this manner as it is a form of metadata analysis, like Legally Kidnapped, and the fact that the U.S. Department of Justice has....for the longest...ignored me, just like the States Attorney General when it comes to that nasty conflict of interest in child welfare.

The entire model started on the ground level of the States, and now has become a global initiative (pun intended).

This is beyond historic because selling chattel may no longer be an option survival.

They can no longer raid the Social Security Trust Fund.

On a mission...

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My Questions To Help Out Senate Judiciary On Calling Out Possible Medicaid Fraud In Child Welfare With Mylan

Heather Bresch

Heather Bresch, CEO of Mylan Pharmaceuticals, has recently announced an 461% increase in the cost of EpiPens. If you ever wanted a working example of Medicaid fraud in child welfare, well, here you have it.

She recently justified the cost increase on the U.S. health care system citing price markups of the multiple layers of distribution players.

Before I set forth a series of poignant questions which, as a CEO, she failed to raise, I would like everyone to watch this video on the cost of the EpiPen in Canada.  International distribution did not change pricing.



Now, here are my questions for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and Chairman Chuck Grassley:

(Q1)  Why was the announcement to raise the price made the same day Bresch made $5 million in selling off her stock of Mylan, knowing fully well, in advance, the schedule of her option was also set for the same day?

(A1)  This action was obviously strategic, but why?  At this juncture one can only guess, but I am going for the maximization of profits for "tax aversion" purposes, of course.

(Q2) Why, as an issue of corporate ethics, in the light of the Shrkeli price gouging of Daraprim scandal, would such a person take such a similar action, knowing fully well, that the targeted population are children of poverty, specifically public schools, with unfunded mandates, to be stocked with necessary medicine, billed through Medicaid?

(A2) Medicaid fraud in child welfare is an unregulated industry, pervasively woven into the fabric our national history, with no elected officials, public administrators or anyone from the legal or child welfare community willing to speak upon these well documented woes.  I assert, that, because the industry is too big to fail and the profits will eventually fund political campaigns to keep the system intact, no one will initiate movement in fear of the destruction of one's political career.

(Q3)  Has this woman, with her father a prominent Senator Joe Manchin, taken a backdoor political stance with him on the repeal of Obamacare by blaming Obamacare for the price hike in order for her father to keep his Democratic seat in the Senate in a strongly Republican-swayed presidential 2016 district made by the salacious actions of the DNC?

(A3) Sounds plausible to me.

(Q4) Is there a possible, spurious, relationship between the inversion of Mylar and the Clinton Foundation?

(A4)  Only a formal referral for federal investigation can answer this question.

(Q5)  Could this possibly be a violation of antitrust?  Let me sniff.

(A5)  Yup.  It stinks of antitrust violations.  Seek and ye shall find, my fine Senate Judiciary Staffers!

"Get 'em."

Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley Request to Heather Bresch of Mylan on EpiPen Price Increase by Beverly Tran on Scribd

#epigate #epipen

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Conyers: “Doc Fix” Protects Seniors, Children, and Community Health Centers

WASHINGTON – Today, Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (MI-13) released the following statement after voting in support of H.R. 2, The Medicare and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, which passed the House overwhelmingly with a final vote of 392-37:

Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

“This bipartisan agreement will provide much-needed stability for patients, doctors, and hospitals, while ensuring funding for essential children’s insurance programs and community health centers.  Had Congress failed to act, doctors would have faced steep cuts in Medicare reimbursements and, accordingly, seniors with health coverage would have been left without care. For years, Medicare’s payments to healthcare providers have failed to keep pace with inflation, leading doctors around the country to refuse seeing Medicare patients.  Crucially, this permanent “doc fix” legislation protects all current beneficiaries from cost increases.

“Equally important to fixing Medicare’s broken payment system, today’s bipartisan agreement safeguards health investments for children and struggling families. The legislation includes a two year extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) while avoiding the GOP’s desired funding cuts.  The legislation also includes $7.2 billion in funding over two years for the Community Health Center Program created under the Affordable Care Act.  Detroit has seven Community Health Centers that serve nearly 100,000 patients per year, 70 percent of whom are low-income. Without this funding, Detroit’s Community Health Centers would have been forced to turn away patients or even close their doors.”

“Having served as a champion for Medicare since voting for its creation in 1965, I strongly reject any attempts to shift the costs of care to struggling and vulnerable beneficiaries.  I supported this legislation because it contains important safeguards to protect people in need, and because it will help ensure that Americans—both young and old—maintain their access to quality healthcare.”

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HHS Inspector Levinson Testifies On Medicaid Fraud In Child Welfare

"Three of these are relevant to today’s hearing – Foster Care, Head Start, and the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) – and accounted for about $0.5 billion of those improper payments."

 

Top Management Challenges at the Department of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education: Perspective...

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HHS Reports Fraud In Child Welfare Culture of Entitlements

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General has published its findings of meeting the requirements of reporting and recovering improper payments.  Without surprise it was reported that there were reported improper payment information for its child welfare programs, including no corrective action for recovery of the improperly reimbursed programs.

The report specifically addressed Medicaid fraud in child welfare, including its ancillary programs of Title IV-E and B, a.k.a. foster care, Temporary Assistant to Needy Families (TANF), Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) and Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

As stated in the report one of the reasons there was no rate reduction in improper payments was due to poor, if not lack of reporting by the States.

This can be easily translated into one simple term:  Secrecy.

Secrecy in the validation of child welfare payments go far beyond "protecting the best interests of the child".  Secrecy expands the broad universe of protecting the status quo of program operations and goals.  The operations are archaic and the goals have never been met.  It can be viewed as an iron curtain.

Simply put, child welfare does not perform the way it is promoted to function.

One performance standard which does not even exist is the function of the States Medicaid Fraud Control Units.  How is it, when, a State Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU), warehoused in the Attorney General Office has the option of recovering improper payments of its child welfare programs, specifically foster care, can contemporaneously advocate and advise the same Child Placing Agencies it defends?

Continuing along the line of MFCU omissions of oversight, there are no referral mechanisms of a State's Medicaid program for improper, or even questionable activities for that matter.

The entire situation becomes apparent as a conflict of interest, allowing States to opt for the financial penalties of program funding for the simple fact that child welfare programs are outside the scope of an appropriated budget, or rather they are outlier payments reimbursed after the fact.

States will make up for the federal financial penalties with its child abuse propaganda campaigns to raise money, with the money from improper claims, to continue to keep its operations unscathed from reform.  Continuing a culture of contractual entitlements is just another fancy way of saying false claims.

A few years ago I attended one of the symposiums of the DOJ and HHS partnership on health care fraud enforcement.  When I spoke on the ills of oversight regarding questionable cost reimbursements, one of the agents on the stage dismissed me.  There was DOJ video of this but it does not seem to be currently available.  That agent can now eat his words in the reading of this report.

With the pending first implementation phase of the Affordable Care Act, States are facing severe challenges of meeting reporting, recovery exclusion requirements of its child welfare programming.

Until there is some form of transparency, a broadly ambiguous term in itself, the contractual culture of entitlements will never change.

HHS Improper Payments Information Audit 2013

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Utah's Child Medicaid Data Breach Worse Than Expected

These hackers were pretty smart (probably got the idea from this site) because they accessed children's information which means whoever they sell it off to there will be no criminal prosecution.  Remember, it would not be in the best in the best interest of the child to release any information.  You know the routine because it is child abuse propaganda month!

Utah's Medicaid Data Breach Worse Than Expected

Utah Department of Technology Services (DTS) reveals 780,000 individuals have been affected by the theft of sensitive Medicaid information. That's far worse than initial estimates.

A new tally of files stored on a server that contained Medicaid information at the Utah Department of Technology Services (DTS) reveals that 780,000 individuals have been affected by the theft of sensitive information. That's far worse than initial estimates.

The data breach occurred on March 30, when a configuration error occurred at the password authentication level, allowing the hacker, located in Eastern Europe, to circumvent DTS's security system.

"The server was a test server and when it was put into production there was a misconfiguration. Processes were not followed and the password was very weak," Stephanie Weiss, spokesperson for DTS, toldInformationWeek Healthcare.

On Monday DTS, along with the Utah Department of Health (UDOH), announced that an additional 255,000 people had their social security numbers (SSNs) stolen by hackers from a computer server last week. Until last Friday, authorities had estimated that only 25,096 individuals had their SSNs compromised. That brought the revised figure up to 280,096.

DTS officials said the 280,096 victims were individuals whose information was sent to the state by their healthcare provider in a transaction called a Medicaid Eligibility Inquiry to determine their status as possible Medicaid recipients.

Another 500,000 individuals had less sensitive personal information stolen, comprising names, addresses, dates of birth, and medical diagnostic codes, among other information. That brings the total number affected to more than 780,000. Officials cautioned that some victims may have been counted twice, and the number of people affected could be reduced as the investigation continues.

The information was hacked from 224,000 files that contained Medicaid Eligibility Inquiries and from the records of Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Plan (CHIP) recipients.

One single file can potentially contain claims information on hundreds of individuals. DTS has started the process of identifying these additional victims, and the state will be sending letters directly to them as they are identified. To provide a remedy, victims whose SSNs were stolen will receive one year of free credit-monitoring services.

"I am not the least bit surprised," said Daniel Berger, president and CEO of Redspin Inc., a company that provides IT risk assessments at hospitals and other medical facilities. In an interview with InformationWeek Healthcare Berger said, "While the majority of healthcare data breaches to date have been the result of non-malicious incidents, it's always been only a matter of time before the hackers arrived. Digitized medical records are now a high-value target."

Looking ahead, Tom Hudachko, spokesman for UDOH, said the department will send its report to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as they assess potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

"DTS is listed as a business associate of ours, so they will be responsible for filing their own separate report with HHS's Office of Civil Rights (OCR), and we will also be filing a report with OCR and with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services," Hudachko told InformationWeek Healthcare. "We've spent some time thinking about a potential fine, but right now we're trying to figure out how we're going to take care of the victims' immediate needs."

In the meantime, DTS has implemented new data security procedures. "We've reviewed our process to prevent this type of incident from happening again," Weiss said. "We've put in place some additional network monitoring and intrusion-detection capabilities."

To shore up their data protection procedures, Rick Kam, president and co-founder of ID Experts, said DTS and UDOH should perform an inventory of the sensitive information their organization manages. "Whether it is considered personally identifiable information (PII) or protected health information (PHI), both have regulatory security requirements to protect it and to notify individuals if security is breached," Kam toldInformationWeek Healthcare.

In order to reduce the risk of data theft, Kam recommends that organizations take the following steps:

-- Ask for and keep only PII/PHI that is necessary, and properly dispose of that data.

-- Perform annual risk assessments where PII/PHI exists, whether it is managed within your organization or by third parties, to identify any threats and vulnerabilities and to find the best ways to mitigate risk.

-- Determine the "at risk value" of the PII/PHI to justify appropriate levels of investment in risk mitigation systems used to protect it.

-- Implement and test risk mitigation tools on a periodic basis to make sure they are working effectively.

"Hackers are testing for configuration errors, simple authentication procedures, or weak passwords. It is highly probable that this situation could have been avoided," Kam said.

Then there are preventive measures on the back end to stop the false claims in child welfare but we all know that will never happen.  The child abuse lobbyists are too powerful and making too much money to stop child welfare fraud.


Happy Child Abuse Propaganda Month!

Stop Child Medicaid Fraud
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Michigan Cuts Children's Hospitalization by $45 Million

There are always good and bad sides to every story.

Here you have Michigan leading the charge to reduce the debt and balance its budget on the backs of children.  The logic is quite simple if one only turns on the television.

Masses of people have no qualms allowing for the death of children of the poor if they do not share in the cost of health care of the community.  "No money, no health care, and this includes children."

There is even a movement to have lil' Johnnie start singing for his supper, again.



On the other side of the spectrum, it forces hospitals to change its healing models and focus more on home-based/community-based services for recovery, a Targeted Case Management, uncapped, Medicaid funding stream.

So, in essence, this new Children's Medicaid Inpatient Hospital Reduction Policy promulgates, under the guise of ending the practice of paying for children of the poor's health care, and instead provide more community funding through job creation and small business development in home-based/community-based services for children and their families, improving the quality and delivery of care through competition.

Michigan Children's Medicaid Inpatient Hospital Reduction Policy

Michigan Medicaid Fraud in Child Welfare Federal Report

I keep telling everyone Michigan's current structure and lack of oversight is a breeding ground for false claims and fraudulent billing in child welfare health care programs but no one listens....


If anyone wishes detailed information on these revenue-maximization schemes, just hit me up.




HHS OIG Review of Michigan’s Payment Error Rate Measurement Corrective Action Plan 2011

Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP Final Rules 2011

Final rules with opportunity for public comment only on fingerprinting requirement.

These regulations are effective on March 25, 2011

Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP Additional Screening Requirements, Application Fees, Temporary Enrollment Moratori...

Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan announce national coalition to enroll uninsured kids in health care

Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan announce national coalition to enroll uninsured kids in health care

The Urban Institute’s Genevieve Kenney presents new report on states’ success enrolling target populations in Medicaid and CHIP

WASHINGTON – U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan today highlighted the Connecting Kids to Coverage Challenge to enroll five million children in Medicaid and CHIP within five years. Since Sebelius announced the Challenge last February, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have built an unprecedented coalition of partners, ranging from state governors to national advocacy organizations, who have stepped up to the challenge to enroll kids and educate families.

Although health coverage is currently available to children in families with incomes up to about $45,000 per year in nearly every state, an estimated five million uninsured children are eligible for Medicaid or CHIP but not enrolled.

“Nothing is more important to our future than the health of our children. No child should have to skip a doctor’s appointment or go without the medicine they need because their family can’t pay,” said Secretary Sebelius. “Despite the great advances that states have made over the years, there are nearly five million uninsured children who are currently eligible for coverage but are not enrolled. I’m challenging everyone, from my state and federal counterparts, to local governments and community-based organizations, to health centers and school districts, to faith-based groups and Indian tribes, to take this conversation about children’s coverage to the next level – to find and enroll those five million kids.”

”If a child is not healthy, he or she cannot learn,” said Secretary Duncan. “The education community has a critical role to play in finding and enrolling eligible children. We’re working to involve every member of the school community, including superintendents, principals, teachers, school nurses, and lunch room staff in meeting this achievable challenge.”

Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan were joined by Genevieve Kenney of the Urban Institute, whose new report Five Million Eligible But Uninsured: Who and Where Are the Children Yet to Enroll in Medicaid And The Children’s Health Insurance Program? was released in Health Affairs on-line today along with a Health Affairs Commentary by Secretary Sebelius, Rising to the Challenge: Tools for Enrolling Eligible Children in Health Coverage.

For years, researchers have struggled to produce accurate estimates on the number of uninsured children in each state. The paper released today by Health Affairs successfully created a new model, using data from The American Community Survey, that enabled researchers to produce meaningful national and state estimates. Some of the key findings include that:

• According to coverage estimates, an estimated 7.3 million children were uninsured on an average day in 2008, of whom 4.7 million (65 percent) were eligible for Medicaid or CHIP but not enrolled
• Participation rates varied across states from 55 percent to 95 percent
• Ten states had participation rates at or above 90 percent
• Thirty-nine percent of eligible uninsured children (1.8 million) live in just three states—California, Texas, and Florida—and 61 percent (2.9 million) are concentrated in ten states.

“This new data will help us to focus our efforts and our grant funding where they are most needed,” Sebelius said. “We now have a much better sense of where most uninsured children live, and which communities may need more help.”

Together, the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA) and the Affordable Care Act provide $120 million for grants designed to promote enrollment and retention strategies that will increase the prevalence of health coverage.

One of this Administration’s key goals is to fulfill the CHIPRA legislation – which the President signed as one of his first acts in office – to ensure that all children who are eligible for Medicaid and CHIP are enrolled in coverage and stay enrolled for as long as they are eligible.

CHIPRA, combined with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) and its recent extension of increased federal Medicaid funding, has given states unprecedented federal support that has enabled them to keep providing essential health services for low-income families through Medicaid during the economic downturn.

To date, 17 national organizations and a number of states have agreed to sign on to the Connecting Kids to Coverage Challenge. These organizations, ranging from the United Way to the American Academy of Pediatrics, represent a broad base of organizations who are working to enroll children in health insurance. The full list includes:

• Governor Ted Strickland, Ohio
• Governor Ted Kulongoski, Oregon
• American Academy of Pediatrics
• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
• Families USA
• First Focus
• March of Dimes
• MomsRising
• National Academy for State Health Policy
• National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions
• National Association of Community Health Centers
• National Association of School Nurses
• National Council of La Raza
• National Covering Kids and Families Network
• New England Alliance for Children’s Health, Community Catalyst
• PICO
• The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
• United Way Worldwide
• Voices for America’s Children

There are a wide range of strategies – like providing 12 months of continuous eligibility for Medicaid or CHIP to reduce the chances of children cycling on and off of coverage and pre-populating renewal forms to make it easier for families to stay enrolled – that are known to help get and keep children insured. HHS will be providing technical assistance as well as targeted grant funding to promote these strategies.
More information on the Secretary’s Challenge can be found at insurekidsnow.gov.

###

This is an excellent initiative as it beats Child Protective Services to the punch.  By providing services and resources will reduce the number and rate of children entering the foster care system as being without the services provided by Medicaid and CHIP, the necessary needs of the child, will stop the excuse of poverty as being abuse and neglect. 

The best part of this initiative is that it will reduce Medicaid fraud in the foster care system as it will now be under a universal system more transparent than foster care.

Let's see what Michele Bachmann has to say about this.

Initiating Empirical Research in Children's Health Care

Sebelius Awards $100 Million to 10 States to Test Innovations in Children's Health Care

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced $100 million in federal grant funds to 10 states to improve health care quality and delivery systems for children enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

The grants, which will be awarded over a five year period, were funded by the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (CHIPRA). The money will help states implement and evaluate provider performance measures and utilize health information technologies such as pediatric electronic health records and other quality improvement initiatives.

“We all have a stake in the health of our nation’s children,” said Sebelius. “Exploring new technologies and initiatives will help ensure our kids get the high quality care they need and deserve.”
The grants are totally federally funded and are designed help establish a national quality system for children’s health care through Medicaid and CHIP.

“These grants will test the most current theories of how to improve the quality of care delivered to children,” said Cindy Mann, director of the Center for Medicaid and State Operations within CMS.  “These awards will help create the foundation for a more responsive and effective national system of high quality health care for children.”

Awardees represent both single-state projects and multi-state collaborations.  Grantees working in multi-state partnerships will share award funds with those partners with funding ultimately distributed among 18 states in total. The awards were granted to:

Lead State	Partner(s)	First-Year Award	Five-Year Total Award
Maine	Vermont	$2,030,721	$11,277,362
Oregon	Alaska, West Virginia	$2,231,890	$11,277,361
Pennsylvania		$1,934,754	$9,777,361
North Carolina		$2,210,712	$9,277,361
Florida	Illinois	$880,371	$11,277,361
Massachusetts		$1,496,542	$8,777,542
Colorado	New Mexico	$1,722,161	$7,784,030
Utah	Idaho	$2,877,134	$10,277,360
South Carolina		$2,214,263	$9,277,361
Maryland	Georgia, Wyoming	$2,401,467	$10,993,171

Eight of the 10 grantees will test a new set of child health quality measures, and seven of the ten states will use the funds to implement health information technology (HIT) strategies with two states specifically planning to develop a new pediatric electronic health record format.

More information about CHIP can be found at www.InsureKidsNow.gov.

More information about health information technology initiatives and experimental methodologies on state levels can be found at http://beverlytran.blogspot.com/2010/01/there-was-no-nebraska-compromise.html.

Every state is participating in this initiative.  The ones that received nothing are the observed.  There are more than 18 states that are to receive treatments, and the treatments vary.

Looks like I owe Cindy Mann an apology...but we shall wait and see.  I'm watching you, girl.  This is absolutely brilliant.

XOXO