June 2015 Issue

On March 31, 2015, Community Catalyst announced a $14.8 million legacy award from The Atlantic Philanthropies to launch The Center for Consumer and Community Engagement in Health System Transformation (The Center). We were thrilled to celebrate the successful conclusion of what had been a year-long process of assessment, debate, conceptualization, reflection, budgeting, writing, and a lot of rewriting. 

If you listen to political prognosticators these days, you might think that the fight to expand Medicaid is a lost cause. With a conservative show of strength in last November’s midterm elections and ACA repeal efforts constantly underway in Congress, it’s easy to overlook the real story. And nowhere is the real story – that the fight to close the coverage gap is alive and well – more apparent than in the state of Montana.

The movement to establish dental therapists as members of the oral health care team is gaining significant momentum as a result of strong community-led efforts in states across the country. In the past few months, there have been several important strides toward making the training and licensure of dental therapists a reality. In both the legislative and regulatory arenas, Community Catalyst’s Dental Access Project has played an active role in mobilizing community groups to call for routine dental care for the millions of Americans in underserved and rural communities.

Health insurance coverage for drug and alcohol problems and for mental illness has long been treated as an afterthought, offered with skimpy benefits, if any at all. In 2008, Congress passed the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (parity law) that was designed to end discriminatory practices against people with these health issues by requiring equity in benefits for physical and behavioral health. The Affordable Care Act extended the parity law's reach, so that the law covers most small group and individual private insurance plans as well as Medicaid managed care and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).