On October 4, 2017, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee approved a bill that would reauthorize federal funding through FFY 2022 for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), a program that currently serves over nine million low-income children. New funding authorization for CHIP expired on September 30, 2017. For now, states are operating CHIP on federal allotments left over from prior years. Those reserves vary widely from state to state.

PCG subject matter experts recently completed a survey report entitled “Balance Billing: Report of Recent Efforts to Protect Consumers.” The practice of balance billing is historically commonplace, but increased scrutiny on rising out of pocket health care costs is driving efforts to provide greater transparency into the practice.

Data driven decision making, long the norm in the private sector, is becoming prevalent in the public sector.  This is true not only here at home, but also around the world as many countries grapple with how to improve outcomes while living within constrained budgets. Evidence-based policy making, using data to inform decisions, and paying for performance are all tools being used to improve results.

Progress has continued on state efforts to secure Section 1332 State Innovation Waivers. Oregon submitted a waiver application at the end of August, seeking support for a state-based reinsurance program, and that application has since been determined complete. Iowa submitted two recent updates to its pending waiver application, which it initially submitted in June. Its waiver application has also now been determined complete.