Thursday, March 11, 2004

Medicaid's Federal-State Partnership: Alternatives for Improving Financial Integrity - Summary of Issues, Approaches, and Alternatives for Reform
A report in Adobe Acrobat format from the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured - "In this report ... Penny Thompson, former deputy director for the Center for Medicaid and State Operations, used existing models from the private sector and other government programs to assess Medicaid’s financial management and to develop options for improvement. This table summarizes the report’s findings."  
  

Economist Testifies About 10 Myths of the Uninsured
News release from the Center for Studying Health System Change - "If members of Congress want to make a 'serious dent' in reducing the number of Americans without health insurance, they will have to 'claim and redirect a considerable amount of public resources,' economist Len Nichols, Ph.D., vice president of the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC), told a congressional committee today. 'The single most important reason people are uninsured in this country is they are not willing to pay what it costs to insure themselves, and their unwillingness to pay is highly but not perfectly correlated with low income,' Nichols testified at a hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health. 'If policy makers really want to increase coverage, they're going to have to subsidize people, probably quite substantially, since most of the uninsured have incomes below twice-times poverty,' Nichols said." See also Nichols' testimony. At the Kaiser Family Foundation site, the testimony of Diane Rowland, Executive Vice President and Executive Director of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, is also available (in Adobe Acrobat format)  
  

Living with mental illness and no home (Minnesota)
February 27 PR Newswire article reprinted at the NAMI web site - "The number of Minnesota children who are homeless with their families has leveled off after a decade of dramatic growth, according to the first look at results from Wilder Research Center's survey of homelessness in Minnesota. The survey, conducted on a single night in October 2003, found 2,862 children homeless with their families. That number is down about 10 percent from 3,178 the last time the survey was done in 2000. However, researchers caution that the closing of a large Minneapolis shelter since the 2000 survey may account for some of the drop."  
  

A Quiet Revolution: Law As An Agent Of Health System Change
Editorial article in the latest Health Affairs - "This paper considers law’s impact on health system change. Federal courts and state regulators have remade the rules of the medical marketplace, restricting the methods available to managed care organizations to control costs. Legal conflict, however, has had a larger effect through its influence on market actors’ perceptions and expectations. In anticipation of adverse legal outcomes and in response to consumers’ and investors’ anxiety, health plans changed business strategies, backing away from aggressive cost management. We conclude with four lessons about law’s role in the health sphere—lessons that stress the power of legal conflict to shape perceptions and to thereby change behavior before legal change occurs."  
  

SAMHSA: $4.3 Million Statewide Family Network and Consumer Network Grant Applications Re-Issued
SAMHSA press release - "The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has re-issued its notice that it will accept applications for FY 2004 grants to provide funding for family and consumer networks that support effective substance abuse and mental health service delivery to address the needs of children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbances, and their families. The application dates are extended so applicants can use SAMHSA’s new grant application process." See also information on the new grant process.  
  

Mental health care accreditation debated a year after bill passed (Louisiana)
AP story at Nola.com - "A move to standardize and better regulate the care given to Louisiana's low-income mental-health patients ran into criticism Wednesday from some service providers who said they weren't given enough time for the changes. 'Don't put us in a position where we can't survive,' said Pat Tombar, director of For Better Life Inc. of New Orleans. Health officials and lawmakers, however, said the measure requiring that providers of mental health rehabilitation services be accredited was passed a year ago and the providers won't have to be fully accredited until Dec. 31, 2005."  
  

Holden signs mental health care bill (Missouri)
St. Louis Post Dispatch story - "Gov. Bob Holden signed legislation Wednesday that could make it easier for some children to receive state-funded mental health care. Under current law, the state can only provide long-term mental health care to children whose families meet the eligibility guidelines of the Medicaid program for the poor and disabled, or who relinquish custody of their children to the Department of Social Services. Under the bill signed by Holden, state officials can waive the normal means test used to qualify for Medicaid so that parents do not have to place their children in state custody to get the needed care."  
  

County approves stopgap measure for mental health (Iowa)
Story in the Algona Upper Des Moines - "Last week the Kossuth County board of supervisors approved a temporary mental health care plan set a motion per county mental health plan that will eliminate a current patient waiting list. This plan is only good until June 30, 2004. Over the last few months the Kossuth County board of supervisors and Dona Nielson, Kossuth County central point of coordination at the Courthouse Annex, have been working together to bring in more mental health providers in an effort to eliminate a lack of county services. At the current time there is a five to six week wait before a patient can be seen by a certified mental health care provider, Nielson said."  
  

Alberta short-changing mental health services (Canada)
Edmonton Journal story - "The Alberta government needs to commit major new funding to meet a rising tide of mental health problems, a new report says. Alberta is spending seven per cent of its health budget on mental health, far less than the 11-per-cent average in other provinces, according to the draft report of the Provincial Mental Health Planning Project."