States are spending 15 percent of their home-generated revenue on the program, seeing their largest cost increases in 20 years.
A group of state lawmakers, advocates and parents are working to change a Medicaid rule that limits psychiatric hospital stays to 15 days a month, but the change would need $7.2 million annually and federal approval.
The state has dropped more than 130,000 of its 500,000 Medicaid beneficiaries since April and about 30 percent of those disenrolled were left uninsured, which could be a bad sign for the rest of the nation.
When Arkansas expanded Medicaid in 2014, it used expansion dollars to buy private insurance for uninsured residents, making thousands more eligible for coverage. Georgia is considering a similar idea as a way to roll back hospital regulations.
Since the end of the pandemic-era continuous Medicaid renewals, 1.4 million Texans have been dropped from the federal health insurance program and 58 percent of them have been children.
Long-term nursing home care could easily cost more than $100,000 a year without Medicaid and 90 percent of people have said it would be impossible or very difficult to pay that much.
The question is whether this is a one-year blip or part of a more concerning shift, but it reflects hard truths about the state of our infant and maternal health care.
User fees in particular have the potential to fund a variety of programs, from traditional services like disease intervention to new initiatives dealing with social determinants of health, such as housing and food insecurity.
Since federal protections keeping the medical insurance intact during the pandemic ended in April, approximately 3 in 4 patients have lost coverage due to “procedural reasons.” At least one-third of those patients are children.
The vast majority of Americans will be able to get the new vaccines at no cost through their insurance or from public health sources. But making sure it’s the right match for your plan to avoid paying can be challenging.
The state outdistances all others with 16.6 percent of its population without health insurance. Nationally, 8 percent of people don’t have coverage, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Gov. Greg Gianforte vetoed a bill would have moved more than 200 people off waiting lists for government-supported care and saved the state money by accessing more federal Medicaid money to cover their costs.
The costs of treating cancer are soaring, just at a time when some states are moving to save money by cutting Medicaid enrollment. It’s sure to worsen health-care inequality.
Dishonest agents and brokers who are seeking to earn a sales commission are registering homeless people for zero-premium plans, which often don’t cover copays, deductibles or other expenses that are unaffordable to low-income residents.
Under Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida has one of the highest rates of uninsured residents in the country and it continues to reject federal Obamacare money to insure more low-income residents.
Pandemic expansion of Medicaid benefits ended on March 31. A former Medicaid deputy director offers thoughts on what lies ahead.
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