Health First Authority update

Today’s Health First Authority meeting was uneventful. Sharon Langer from CT Voices for Children gave a primer on Medicaid and SCHIP. David Parrella from DSS gave an update on Charter Oak and the HUSKY transition (the same slides he used for Friday’s Medicaid Managed Care Council meeting). DSS has developed a concept paper for an 1115 Affordable Choices waiver to cover Charter Oak, HUSKY, and SAGA and submitted the paper to CMS. DSS refused to share the concept paper with the Authority. Discussion topics included client churning (no answers about why), rate increases (too little, too late), the spending cap (how it restricts the state from accessing federal money), and affordability standards (CT is less generous to uninsured consumers than Massachusetts). There was a presentation by Paul Lombardo of the Dept. of Insurance on MA’s health reforms and by Paul Grady of Mercer on value-based purchasing. Materials from the meeting are online. The next meeting is Sept. 11th at 9am.
Ellen Andrews