Beginning in 2007, State Coverage Initiatives unveiled a new technical assistance program, the Coverage Institute, which has focused on substantial and comprehensive care health reform.
The goals of the Institute are to:
- Provide support to states that are seriously considering substantial and comprehensive health reform; and
- Develop the capacity of state officials to understand the implications of different programmatic decisions and how those may impact the existing system.
The Coverage Institute is bringing together twelve states (Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, and Wisconsin ) working on substantial or comprehensive health reform to work with one another and with policy experts around the development and design of those reforms. On September 26-28, 2007, the Coverage Institute began with an intensive two-and-a-half day meeting where state teams discussed major issues of health care reform. Each state participated in a highly interactive, team-based process for developing policy and program recommendations. Fifteen distinguished faculty shared their expertise on various issues including: insurance market reforms, reinsurance, other methods to subsidize coverage, connectors/exchanges, Medicaid waivers and the Deficit Reduction Act, health systems improvement, and strategies for building stakeholder and policymaker support.
On February 1, 2008, SCI, through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, awarded development grants to nine states —Arkansas, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and Wisconsin—participating in the Coverage Institute. The primary goal of these grants is to further assist states in the development and refinement of their health care reform plans.
Additionally, two states – Colorado and New Jersey – were awarded options development/micro-simulation modeling grants. Both states will be working with a team from the Urban Institute to develop specific policy options, to delineate a finite number of policy options that will be modeled using a micro-simulation model, and to better understand other key design and implementation issues.
While Ohio was selected to participate in the Coverage Institute, it did not request Coverage Institute funds. Ohio has pursued a number of health reform goals. To learn more about these activitites, see the
July 2008 edition of St@teside.
