On November 16, the Joint Medicaid Oversight Committee (JMOC) met to revisit the topic of beta testing Ohio’s Behavioral Health Redesign. This time, in addition to a presentation by Medicaid Director Barbara Sears and other Kasich administration staff, JMOC heard from the Ohio Association of Health Plans (OAHP), The Ohio Council of Behavioral Health &...
Author: Loren Anthes (Loren Anthes)
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The New Rules of Waivers and State Plan Amendments
On Tuesday November 7th, the federal Department of Health and Human Services outlined its new criteria for reviewing states’ efforts to experiment with their Medicaid programs. In a press release sent out by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Director Seema Verma outlined her “vision” for the Medicaid program, which includes a new...
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Joint Medicaid Oversight Committee: Behavioral Health Redesign Beta Testing
On October 19, the Joint Medicaid Oversight Committee (JMOC) met to continue the conversation regarding the progress of Ohio’s Behavioral Health Redesign. In the presentation offered by the state before next week’s commencement of beta testing for claims, the state outlined metrics they have will be using to document their progress including number of patients...
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Joint Medicaid Oversight Committee: Medicaid Budgeting and the Behavioral Health Redesign
On September 21, the Joint Medicaid Oversight Committee (JMOC) met to discuss the state budget process and the Behavioral Health Redesign and, on September 22, the state convened one of its regional forums on the redesign for providers. These two events can demonstrate how policy is discussed in the context of committee and the practical...
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Senate Veto Overrides: Senate Veto Overrides: Implications for Ohio’s Medicaid Program
On Tuesday, August 22, the Senate voted to override six of Governor Kasich’s Medicaid-related vetoes. In July, the House had overridden 11 of the governor’s vetoes, 10 of which dealt with Medicaid, meaning that the Senate can still act on four of those Medicaid-related provisions pushed forward by the House. Several of the veto overrides...
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State Budget Update: Medicaid Changes in House Substitute Bill
With the budget in full swing, the Ohio House has offered its first amendments to the governor’s proposed budget. This action is the first in a multi-step process that will soon include another round of consolidated amendments (Omnibus) before it is voted on by the full House and sent to the Senate. Even though we...
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The Return on Investment of Medicaid Expansion: Supporting Work and Health in Rural Ohio
When debating the Medicaid expansion in 2013, the Ohio legislature appropriately questioned whether expanding the program to non-disabled adults would be done so efficiently, supporting the health, welfare, and economy of Ohio and its citizens. The subsequent policy process reflected this focus on program performance, including a legislative committee tour around Ohio to understand the...
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The Gift of the MAGI?
Medicaid is big and complicated. As I have written about before, the intertangled state and federal monies, processes, and policies that comprise the Medicaid program vary greatly from state to state and, as the saying goes, if you’ve seen one state Medicaid program, you’ve seen one state Medicaid program. With that said, Medicaid occupies a...
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JMOC: Preliminary Report from the Actuary
It has been a couple months since the last Joint Medicaid Oversight Committee (JMOC) hearing, and the latest meeting covered a lot of ground in a five-hour-plus session. The majority of JMOC dealt with the behavioral health redesign, including testimony from providers and the administration. If you want to learn more about what was shared...
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Census Review: The Impact of the Affordable Care Act on the Uninsured
The Center for Community Solutions team has been analyzing the implications of the latest U.S. Census information. To learn more about this data more broadly, please click here to see the blog post by Kate Warren. With that said, I wanted to dive a bit more deeply into one set of metrics around the uninsured...