- Trump's Win Puts Medicaid Expansion on Hold in Red States Forbes by Bruce Japson—Several states led by Republican governors appear to be putting Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act on hold given talk by the incoming administration of Donald Trump to scrap the law or move to federal block grants to cover poor Americans. State elected officials in Idaho, Nebraska and South Dakota and political pundits in Georgia are saying talk of expanding Medicaid before the election has now subsided at least for the 2017 legislative sessions. That means more than 500,000 Americans will have to wait for health benefits.
- Major Changes For Medicaid Coming Under Trump And The GOP CNN by Tami Luhby—Donald Trump likely won't let Medicaid collapse, but he will vastly change the health insurance program for low-income Americans. Think less federal funding, more state control, fewer participants and higher costs for those in the program. "You cannot let people die on the street, ok?," he said at a CNN town hall in February. "The problem is that everybody thinks that you people, as Republicans, hate the concept of taking care of people that are really, really sick and are gonna die. We gotta take care of people that can't take care of themselves." But he also championed turning much of the program over to the states. Instead of funding the program through a federal match based on enrollment, Trump would give states a fixed amount of money, known as a block grant, and let them administer it. His presidential transition platform calls for maximizing state flexibility, enabling them "to experiment with innovative methods to deliver healthcare to our low-income citizens."
- Many Insured Children Lack Essential Health Care, Study Finds New York Times by Marc Santora—A new study to be released on Monday by the Children’s Health Fund, a nonprofit based in New York City that expands access to health care for disadvantaged children, found that one in four children in the United States did not have access to essential health care, though a record number of young people now have health insurance. The report found that 20.3 million people in the nation under the age of 18 lack “access to care that meets modern pediatric standards.” … While Medicaid and many private insurance plans recommend or require that all of those services be provided, under the umbrella of what is known as the medical home, the study found that millions of insured children are not receiving many of the benefits.