SCI’s Coverage Institute (CI) held its final meeting at the end of July. We designed the sessions to highlight the achievements of the 12 states and to focus on several important elements of their work during the Coverage Institute—process, implementation and enrollment, insurance markets, and system redesign/quality.
The CI was instrumental in helping a group of state leaders from the public and private sectors deepen their understanding of the implications of various programmatic options for expanding health coverage and reforming their delivery system in their respective states. Despite the severe budget setbacks experienced by many of the participating states, many have made extraordinary progress.
The CI began in the Fall of 2007 with a kick-off meeting that brought together representatives of 14 states (Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, and Wisconsin). Each state selected a team to participate in the highly interactive process for developing policy and program recommendations. While the mix of participants varied by state, the teams included senior executive branch officials, legislators, and decision makers from private purchasers, the advocacy community, and practitioners.
Following the initial meeting, participating states were then eligible to compete for additional funding for development/microsimulation modeling or other reform development activities. On February 1, 2008, SCI, through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, awarded development grants to Arkansas, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, and Wisconsin. For the most part, the states used the funds to continue their involvement in a stakeholder consensus-building process, to fund experts to help them develop policy proposals, and to fund the modeling of various policy options. In addition, Colorado and New Jersey were awarded development/microsimulation modeling grants. Both states worked with a team from the Urban Institute to develop policy options, delineate a finite number of policy options for use in a microsimulation model, and understand important design and implementation issues.
Below are links highlighting some of the achievements of the states:
