#TBT: Medicaid Expansion & Historical Data

As part of our “Throwback Thursday” blog series, we’re taking a look at a topic that’s currently in the news and tagging it with previous research, videos or commentaries in a relevant way. As the saying goes, “what’s old is new again” – and we hope you enjoy our wonky twist on #TBT.

A number of states have been debating in recent months whether to expand their Medicaid programs to nearly all adults at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level under the Affordable Care Act. To date, 26 states and Washington, DC, have expanded their programs, while the remaining 25 states are not moving forward at this time. According to news reports, in states that chose to expand, enrollment in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program “jumped by 8.3 percent, compared with an increase of just 1.6 percent in nonexpansion states.”

Since the creation of Medicaid, the National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC) was among a handful of organizations that closely followed the program’s spending and changes because of concerns about policies related to prescription drug access. From 1963 to 2007, NPC published an annual compilation, “Pharmaceutical Benefits Under State Medical Assistance Programs,” which incorporated information on each state pharmacy program from an annual NPC survey of state Medicaid program administrators and pharmacy consultants, statistics from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and information from other Federal agencies and organizations. More specifically, the compilations also included:

• Socio-demographic statistics and a description of the Medicaid certified facilities in each state;
• Medicaid pharmacy program characteristics, drawn largely from NPC’s annual survey of state program administrators;
• Detailed profile of the states’ Medicaid pharmacy program (including medical assistance benefits and eligibles, drug payments and recipients, benefit design, pharmacy payment and patient cost sharing, use of managed care and state contacts); and
• Profiles of State pharmaceutical assistance programs.

Although the Medicaid program has changed quite a bit since 2007, the historical information remains a useful resource for researchers. That’s why we’ve chosen the compilation as our #TBT pick this week.