Healthcare Policy and Law: Analyzing Medicaid Changes & CHIP Impact

This essay examines the changes to Medicaid resulting from the Affordable Care Act, including the expansion of coverage to low-income adults and the implementation of Essential Health Benefits (EHBs). It also analyzes the impact of the Medicaid model on the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), noting its success in reducing the rate of uninsured children and addressing racial and ethnic disparities in coverage. The research highlights CHIP's strong financial support for low-income families, its coverage of dental services, and its focus on immigrant children, particularly black children. The essay references sources by Barr (2011) and Smith, Wertheimer, and Fincham (2013) to support its analysis of healthcare policy and the US healthcare system. Desklib provides a platform for students to access similar solved assignments and study resources.

Healthcare Policy and Law
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Changes to Medicaid resulting
The first change was made in March 2010, which makes the states to provide Medicaid to all
those adults whose income is low. This has brought changes to the people of California as a huge
number of people are getting human service treatment after the implementation of the Affordable
care act. The second change was made to ensure that those individuals who were obtaining
access to health insurance coverage must get health benefits after expansions, under Essential
Health Benefits. It was a controversial aspect of the ACA. The opponents were arguing that the
requirements of EHBs are too broad and this could increase insurance cost. (Barr, 2011).
Impact of Medicaid model for its CHIP
My state has been following the Medicaid model for its CHIP. It has helped my state in reducing
the rate of uninsured children. A huge improvement can be noticed from 1997 as the uninsured
children rate used to be 14% and now it fell by half and reached historical low 7%.
Medicaid and CHIP play an important role for those families whose income is low in comparison
to White people. These two programs have been helping in reducing racial and ethical
discrepancy in children’s coverage.
What I have analyzed in my research is CHIP provides strong financial support to low-income
families and children. It is covering dental service which is not being covered by private health
insurance. CHIP also focus on immigrant children as it covers more than 56% of black children
compared to one-quarter of white and 25% Asian children (Smith, Wertheimer and Fincham,
2013).
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References
Barr, D. (2011). Introduction to U.S. health policy. 3rd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press.
Smith, M., Wertheimer, A. and Fincham, J. (2013). Pharmacy and the US Healthcare
System. 5th ed. The United States: Pharmaceutical Press.
.
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