New Brief Addresses Proposed Medicaid and SCHIP Changes

Recent discussions about changes to the Medicaid program, both on the state and federal level, have lead to a fair amount of confusion. In the last year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has made a number of rulings that could profoundly limit SCHIP and Medicaid’s reach. The Center for Community Solutions has released a paper clarifying the difference between these two sets of changes and the necessity of stopping both.

To read the paper, click here

Report Examines Progress and Challenges Facing AIDS Drug Assistance Programs

Over the past year, there have been important changes to AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAPs), federally-funded, state-operated programs which provide HIV medications to low-income people with HIV/AIDS who have limited or no prescription drug coverage.  For the first time in more than a decade, ADAP waiting lists across the U.S. were nearly eliminated, the result of a combination of factors including increased funding from state budgets and pharmaceutical drug rebate programs in recent years, and changes made to the Ryan White Program, of which  ADAPs are a part, during its last reauthorization.  Ryan White reauthorization also instituted the first ever ADAP minimum drug formulary requirement for antiretrovirals.

To help provide a detailed look at ADAPs across the U.S., the Kaiser Family Foundation and The National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD) released their 12th annual National ADAP Monitoring Project Report at a policy forum in Washington D.C.  The report, based on a comprehensive survey of ADAPs in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, territories, and associated jurisdictions, documents new developments and challenges facing ADAPs, assesses key trends over time, and provides the latest data on the status of these programs.

Survey highlights include:

• The ADAP client caseload reached its highest level since the program’s inception, with about 146,000 enrolled in 2007 and 102,000 served in the month of June 2007 alone.
• Most clients are low-income, with more than four in 10 having incomes at or below 100% of the Federal Poverty Level.  Approximately two-thirds of clients are people of color (33 percent are African American and 26 are percent Hispanic).
• The total ADAP budget for fiscal year 2007 was $1.4 billion.  In June 2007, more than $100 million was spent on HIV prescription drugs.
• Most ADAP clients are concentrated in states with the highest numbers of people living with HIV/AIDS: California, New York, Texas, Florida, and Pennsylvania accounted for half (51 percent) of total enrollment in June 2007.
• In March 2008, Montana was the only state that had a waiting list in place (with three people on the list), compared to March 2007, when four states with a total of 571 people had waiting lists.

The ADAP report is available online at
http://www.kff.org/hivaids/hiv040808pkg.cfm

The new ADAP state-by-state data can also be found on Kaiser’s statehealthfacts.org Web site at
http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparecat.jsp?cat=11

New Report Shows How Many People Are Likely to Die in Ohio Due to Lack of Health Coverage

Report Reveals Why Insurance Matters as a Life-and-Death Issue

Washington, D.C., March 18 — Two people die each day in Ohio because they don’t have health insurance, says a new report by Families USA, the national organization for health care consumers.

The Families USA report, the first-ever state-specific report of this type, is based on a groundbreaking national study by the Institute of Medicine, which in 2002 forged the direct link between a lack of health coverage and deaths from health-related causes.

To read the entire press release from Families USA, click here

To read the Families USA report, click here.