{"id":269352,"date":"2024-08-15T21:17:24","date_gmt":"2024-08-16T04:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/?p=269352"},"modified":"2024-08-15T21:17:24","modified_gmt":"2024-08-16T04:17:24","slug":"medicaid-under-attack-states-can-save-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/medicaid-under-attack-states-can-save-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Medicaid is Under Attack \u2013 How States Can Save it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Out of the 83 million Americans enrolled in Medicaid, nearly half of whom are children, around 23 million have lost or are at risk of losing coverage since the pandemic. The federal COVID-19 emergency temporarily halted the annual Medicaid eligibility checks, known as redetermination.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>With the lifting of the emergency in May 2023, the redetermination process has resumed, affecting nearly one in four Americans and almost half of all children on Medicaid. This resumption has exacerbated existing coverage gaps in many states.<\/p>\n<p>In a media briefing on August 9, hosted by <a href=\"https:\/\/ethnicmediaservices.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ethnic Media Services<\/a>, a panel discussed these coverage gaps in Medicaid.<\/p>\n<h3><b>Speakers<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-269353 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/08-09-24-Medicaid-Under-Fire-speakers-.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"196\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/08-09-24-Medicaid-Under-Fire-speakers-.jpg 800w, https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/08-09-24-Medicaid-Under-Fire-speakers--300x74.jpg 300w, https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/08-09-24-Medicaid-Under-Fire-speakers--150x37.jpg 150w, https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/08-09-24-Medicaid-Under-Fire-speakers--768x188.jpg 768w, https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/08-09-24-Medicaid-Under-Fire-speakers--672x165.jpg 672w, https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/08-09-24-Medicaid-Under-Fire-speakers--400x98.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Katherine Hempstead<\/b>, Senior Policy Adviser at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation<\/li>\n<li><b>Stan Dorn<\/b>, Director of the Health Policy Project at UnidosUS<\/li>\n<li><b>Martha Sanchez<\/b>, Health Policy and Advocacy Director at Young Invincibles<b><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Joan Alker<\/b>, Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Center for Children and Families and Research Professor at Georgetown University<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><b>Redetermination and Coverage Gaps<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>\u201cBecause of the bureaucratic hoops that people need to jump through, the past year has been like a disenrollment churn on steroids, even for many who are still eligible,\u201d said Katherine Hampstead.<\/p>\n<p>A staggering 69% of these disenrollments are due to paperwork issues rather than actual ineligibility. As of April 2024, nearly a quarter of the 20 million people dropped from Medicaid since redetermination began remain uninsured.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMedicaid is the largest single source of health insurance in the country, but there\u2019s both federal and state money going into it \u2026 so it\u2019s like 50 different programs state to state,\u201d Hampstead explained. She further noted that redetermination is particularly widening coverage gaps for populations that Medicaid was originally designed to serve, such as low-income groups, seniors, people with disabilities, children, and pregnant women.<\/p>\n<p>These coverage gaps are disproportionately impacting communities of color, especially in the 10 states, mostly in the South, that have not expanded Medicaid income limits from 100% to 138% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) for adults aged 19 to 64.<\/p>\n<p>This expansion of the FPL was permitted by the Affordable Care Act and was ruled optional for each state by the Supreme Court in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>As of 2024, the FPL stands at $14,580 for an individual, with 138% of that being $20,783, and $24,860 for a family of three, with 138% of that being $35,632.<\/p>\n<p>In states that haven\u2019t expanded FPL limits \u2014 including Florida, Texas, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi \u2014 \u201cthere\u2019s a coverage gap where two to three million people, predominantly populations of color, are in a very unfortunate situation where they\u2019re \u2018too poor\u2019 to get marketplace subsidized coverage, yet they don\u2019t qualify for Medicaid because their state\u2019s eligibility limit is so low,\u201d said Hampstead.<\/p>\n<h3><b>The Younger Generation<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>\u201cDespite our name, young people are not invincible,\u201d said Martha Sanchez. \u201cWe\u2019re the future of our U.S. workforce and economy, and we cannot afford to continue to regress in our health.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Approximately 30% of young adults in the U.S. aged 18 to 34 are uninsured, a rate higher than any other age group, comprising over one in five of all uninsured Americans.<\/p>\n<p>A 2019 CDC study revealed that at least half of young adults have at least one chronic condition, such as diabetes, cancer, or mental health issues. Since the pandemic, these conditions have been on the rise, with one-third of all young adults \u2014 and half of those aged 18 to 24 \u2014 reporting symptoms of mental illness.<\/p>\n<p>The American Cancer Society has also reported increasing rates of cancer among young adults, particularly types typically associated with older adults, like colon cancer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re in a crisis where our health care systems are not meeting the needs of our young people, who are often in a stage of transition out of Medicaid \u2026 because there\u2019s no expansion, they\u2019re sold student health plans or they don\u2019t know how to enroll in other plans,\u201d Sanchez explained.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI grew up on Medicaid, and I never understood all of the benefits I had until I transitioned out as a college student,\u201d she added. \u201cI had annual checkups, vaccinations and dental care, but I had no idea about the mental health benefits. And we\u2019ve heard this from other young adults who shared that they would have taken advantage of mental health resources, but had no idea it was covered \u2026 We need not only Medicaid expansion but health literacy, so people can actually use their coverage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since redetermination, 5.5 million fewer children under 18 are enrolled in Medicaid as of July 2024.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMany of these children remain eligible, and we need to get them back enrolled, particularly in back to school right now,\u201d said Joan Alker.<\/p>\n<p>The changes in Medicaid enrollment vary significantly between states. Texas has seen the largest drop by number, with 1.3 million fewer children enrolled, followed by Florida with approximately 542,600 fewer children, and California with 373,000 fewer children. The largest percentage drops are in Utah, with 34.5% fewer children on Medicaid, Colorado with 30.9% fewer, and Texas with 29.1% fewer children enrolled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve heard that parents are putting off care because they\u2019re not insured, and just hoping their child doesn\u2019t get sick. That children are having to skip their medications, not getting their inhalers, and missing treatments for behavioral health conditions,\u201d said Alker.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChildren are not expensive to our health care system, but they need regular care, so even a short gap exposes the family to large medical bills \u2026 and without that routine care, children are less able to learn,\u201d she added. \u201cMany of these children are still eligible for Medicaid. Any gap in coverage is not acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3><b>What\u2019s To Come?<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>\u201cThe price America pays for giving states enormous authority over their Medicaid programs is extremely high,\u201d said Stan Dorn. \u201cA family has a very different likelihood of getting health care based simply on the state in which they happen to live.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To address these significant coverage gaps, Dorn proposed making \u201cadministrative burdens completely irrelevant for as many people as possible\u201d by implementing paperless eligibility processes, providing linguistically and culturally accessible enrollment assistance, automatically renewing qualified individuals using existing tax and wage information, and ensuring continuous coverage even in cases of missing paperwork.<\/p>\n<p>Given that states pay a portion of the cost for each Medicaid enrollee, Dorn also suggested establishing federal standards for state redetermination performance to incentivize states that are reluctant to pay.<\/p>\n<p>States that exceed these standards could receive a bonus, similar to the approach used with the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program in 2009. For states that fail to meet the standards, Dorn suggested deferring federal payments until improvements are made, while ensuring that families are not terminated from coverage in the meantime.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe found that the states with the worst problems in terms of people losing coverage had invested the least amount of money in their eligibility infrastructure. So ultimately, it\u2019s a question of values,\u201d said Dorn. \u201cAre the states\u2019 officials willing to invest enough money in running a Medicaid program that they would trust with their own family\u2019s health care? Some are willing to invest in systems that work for families and providers, and others are not.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/?s=Medicaid\"><em>Read more on Siliconeer.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Out of the 83 million Americans enrolled in Medicaid, nearly half of whom are children, around 23 million have lost or are at risk of losing coverage since the pandemic. The federal COVID-19 emergency temporarily halted the annual Medicaid eligibility checks, known as redetermination.\u00a0 With the lifting of the emergency in May 2023, the redetermination&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/medicaid-under-attack-states-can-save-it\/\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":269354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63954,5,11,1848,4786,20],"tags":[58719,63995,5209,5210,45701,58718,63989,63992,3231,63994,63663,63990,4826,63991,63993,141],"class_list":["post-269352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethnic-media-services","category-current-affairs","category-lifestyle","category-society","category-u-s-news","category-youth","tag-center-for-children-and-families","tag-coverage-gaps","tag-ems","tag-ethnic-media-services","tag-georgetown-university","tag-joan-alker","tag-katherine-hempstead","tag-martha-sanchez","tag-medicaid","tag-redetermination","tag-robert-wood-johnson-foundation","tag-stan-dorn","tag-states","tag-unidosus","tag-young-invincibles","tag-youth"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}