At the legislature today, there’s Senate action on a bill we learned about last night to invest 78 million dollars in broadband development. And the House quietly passes a flurry of bills on the floor today ranging from early childhood education to rules for barbers and hair stylists. We’ll talk with the Chair and Vice Chair of the House committee that oversees barbershops and hair salons, among other things, on The Legislature Today.
Tag: Children’s Health Insurance Program
WVU Grant Aims to Improve Health Care
West Virginia University is getting a nearly $2 million grant to help improve health care statewide.
The university’s public health school will use the award to coordinate health care planning activities across the state in partnership with West Virginia officials.
The Charleston Daily Mail reports that the initiative is supported by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Technical and financial support is being made available to states that design and test innovative payment and service delivery models aimed at improving health care and lowering costs for Medicare, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program recipients.
Officials say the goal will be to work with health care consumers, providers, payers and other agencies to develop innovative approaches to improve the quality of health care and control cost in West Virginia.
Rockefeller Urges Congress to 'Act Now' on CHIP
U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller chaired his first and, notably, last meeting of the Senate’s Subcommittee on Health Insurance Tuesday afternoon discussing a program he has championed, the Children’s Health Insurance Program or CHIP.
“Creating this program has been one of the most meaningful things I have done in my career in public service,” Rockefeller said in opening the meeting.
“If you’re helping 8 million children across the country, how can that not be important? How can that not be important?”
The Senator says since the bill’s passage in the late ‘90s, the number of uninsured children across the country has been cut in half, from 14 percent to 7 percent.
The program itself is authorized through 2019, but its funding expires in September 2015.
Rockefeller said many state budgets are already being balanced on the assumption that the federal funding will be extended through the life of the program and without it, state governments will likely not be able to continue the programs on their own, leaving millions of children without coverage.
“State legislatures and budget officials are relying on us to act now,” he said. “Colleagues, let’s do our job. Let’s show the American people we can work together to do something good.”
The subcommittee heard testimony from a group of advocates in support of the program, including President of First Focus Bruce Lesley, President of the American Academy of Pediatrics Dr. James Perrin, Director of the Alabama Bureau of Children’s Insurance Cathy Caldwell and President of the American Action Forum Dr. Douglas Holtz-Eakin.
Health Insurance Coverage Increases in W.Va.
The number of West Virginians getting health insurance through two programs has increased more than in almost any other state since Medicaid was expanded under the Affordable Care Act.
That’s according to federal data released this week on those enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program as of April 30.
The Charleston Gazette reports that nearly 154,000 West Virginians had enrolled in one of the programs since open enrollment began.
That makes for an increase of more than 43 percent in Medicaid and CHIP enrollment, the second largest of any state. Oregon saw enrollment increase by nearly 50 percent.
According to state figures, 508,496 West Virginians now have health insurance under one of the two programs. That’s more than a quarter of the state’s population.