Explores the many ways the Affordable Care Act helps eliminate health disparities by improving access to health care for communities of color.
In communities of color, where rates of uninsurance and poor health outcomes are higher than in white communities, the differences between those who have insurance and those who lack it are stark.
Find out how to get involved in developing Medicaid health homes, one of the ways states can get funding from the Affordable Care Act to provide coordinated, patient-centered care.
Both a call to action and a roadmap for progress, Families USA’s latest report, Health Reform 2.0 lays out a path for securing high-quality, affordable health care to all Americans—regardless of income, age, race, or ethnicity—and for achieving the “Triple Aim”: improving health, enhancing quality of care, and reducing health care costs.
This issue brief provides a comprehensive look at the EPSDT benefit, including a plan-to-plan comparison with large scale health plans in two states and the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (FEHBP). That comparison shows that Medicaid’s EPSDT benefit consistently offers more comprehensive coverage for children and greater financial protections for families. It is the gold standard in children’s health coverage.
Health Coverage Matters for Children: The Role of Medicaid in the Healthy Development of America's Children
Access to health care is crucial to children’s health and development. When children have health insurance, they are more likely to get the health care they need. For more than 40 percent of children in the U.S.—approximately 37 million children—Medicaid is the health insurance they rely on. Another 8.9 million children are enrolled in the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Medicaid’s sister program. The success of Medicaid and CHIP is largely responsible for the fact that 95 percent of children under 18 have some form of health coverage.
Medicaid managed care contracting is a promising pathway for securing more sustainable funding for community health workers (CHWs). This issue brief provides examples of contract language that can be used to incentivize or require Medicaid managed care organizations to utilize and fund CHWs and considerations for advocates looking to improve support for CHWs through this pathway.
Blueprint for Health Care Advocacy: How Community Health Workers Are Driving Health Equity and Value in New Mexico
Across the health care system, there is tremendous interest and momentum in reforming the way health care is delivered and paid for in order to improve health care quality and outcomes and at the same time, reduce costs. These reform efforts create an enormous opportunity to improve resources, infrastructure, and incentives for interventions to meaningfully reduce racial and ethnic health disparities. Yet, if these reforms are not designed and implemented carefully, they could actually end up making these disparities worse.