Health Services for Children: The Role of Medicaid and Its Benefit Package

The National Governors’ Association recently made a series of recommendations that would give states more flexibility in administering Medicaid benefits. In addition, the Medicaid Commission has been tasked with the short-term objective of developing policy options to achieve program savings, and Congress will soon consider changes to Medicaid that could include modifications to Medicaid’s benefits as well.

What benefits does Medicaid currently provide for children? How does the Medicaid benefits package for children compare to the benefits offered by commercial insurers? Should states be given more flexibility in what benefits to offer children? What might the impact of such flexibility be — on beneficiaries, on state budgets and on safety net providers?

To help answer these questions and more, the Alliance for Health Reform and The Commonwealth Fund co-sponsored a September 9 luncheon briefing. Participants were: Sara Rosenbaum of the George Washington University with Jenny Kenny of the Urban Institute; Christy Ferguson of America’s Promise; and Nina Owcharenko of The Heritage Foundation. Ed Howard of the Alliance moderated.

Transcript

Full Transcript (Adobe Acrobat PDF)

Speaker Presentations

Christine Ferguson Presentation (Adobe Acrobat PDF)
Sara Rosenbaum Presentation (Adobe Acrobat PDF)