Budget Process
CT Mirror Opinion: Keep MCOs out of HUSKY health care
“In the past, managed care organizations were a disaster for Connecticut’s Medicaid program“ Former legislator, Medicaid provider, member of Medicaid’s state oversight council, and champion for member access to care who lived through the MCO years, Vickie Nardello says, “ I strongly disagree with Gov. Ned Lamont’s plan to bring managed care organizations (MCOs) back…
Read MoreAnalysis: Medicare’s drug price negotiation – Why it’s a big deal
For the first time, Medicare has negotiated prices with pharmaceutical companies. Prescription drug costs are a significant driver of rising healthcare costs in Connecticut, rising 7.7% from 2021 to 2022, more than any other category. Medicare covers one in five Connecticut residents, mainly seniors and people with disabilities, and is the biggest purchaser of drugs…
Read MoreHUSKY parents’ cut expected to impact 15,300 starting in October
In this year’s budget, Connecticut policymakers cut Medicaid/HUSKY coverage for 15,300 low-income parents and caretakers of children. The timing of the cuts and options for other state coverage vary depending on each families’ circumstances. It’s all very confusing, both for HUSKY members and the rest of us. Thankfully, the CT Health Foundation has a new…
Read MoreBook Club: Random Acts of Medicine
Deliberately randomized experiments in medicine and health policy are usually not possible, or even moral. But with increasingly available data and random changes in circumstances, natural experiments can teach us a great deal about what works and what doesn’t. Random events have a huge impact on our health, more than we’d like to acknowledge. Random…
Read MoreDSS gets input for Medicaid landscape survey
At last week’s MAPOC meeting, DSS announced they will be hiring a consultant to survey the Medicaid landscape assessing options for improvement, including MCOs. Advocates, legislators, and other stakeholders have publicly registered their opposition to returning the failed MCO model to our successful HUSKY program. At the meeting DSS requested input on the criteria consultants…
Read MoreCT medical debt levels declining, new state law will help even more
The percent of Connecticut residents with medical debt is coming down, but it still affects one in 28 of us, according to a fascinating new tool from the Urban Institute. In a survey last year, 3.5% of Connecticut residents (blue line) reported they have medical debt that has been referred to collections, down from 8.6%…
Read MoreAnalysis: Newest Hartford Healthcare lawsuit adds a critical twist
Yet another lawsuit against Hartford Healthcare (HHC) may seem obscure and limited to healthcare, but it goes much further. There is overwhelming evidence that prices for care at huge health systems like HHC are driving up healthcare prices for private health plans in Connecticut and it’s getting worse. The third anti-trust lawsuit against HHC outlines…
Read MorenoHuskyMCOs webinar for advocates online
A recording and slides from yesterdays’ noHuskyMCOs webinar for advocates is online. The webinar covered – Questions included — If your group would like a presentation on noHuskyMCOs, email andrews@cthealthpolicy.org.
Read MoreAnalysis: Why most other states use Medicaid MCOs and why CT doesn’t
A question has been posed to opponents of MCOs in Connecticut’s Medicaid program. Under the Rowland administration, Connecticut started using Medicaid MCOs, but we removed them in 2012 because they weren’t performing. Advocates are strongly opposed to using MCOs in HUSKY. But if they’re so terrible, why do 40 other states use MCOs to run…
Read MoreBook Club: Risky Business—Why Insurance Markets Fail And What to Do About It
I thought I knew a lot about how insurance markets work (and don’t), but I learned more than I expected from Risky Business—Why Insurance Markets Fail And What to Do About It by Liran Einav, Amy Finkelstein, and Ray Fishman. Adverse selection (commonly called cherry picking) is a double-edged problem. I knew about insurers’ schemes…
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