State Medicaid Programs

Posted on February 11, 2014 by admin

• Millions trapped in health-law coverage gap, By Christopher Weaver, February 10, 2014, Wall Street Journal: “Ernest Maiden was dumbfounded to learn that he falls through the cracks of the health-care law because in a typical week he earns about $200 from the Happiness and Hair Beauty and Barber Salon. Like millions of other Americans caught in a mismatch of state and federal rules, the 57-year-old hair stylist doesn’t make enough money to qualify for federal subsidies to buy health insurance. If he earned another $1,300 a year, the government would pay the full cost. Instead, coverage would cost about what he earns…”
• In Arkansas, ‘private option’ Medicaid plan could be derailed, By Abby Goodnough, February 10, 2014, New York Times: “Last year, the Republicans who control this state’s Legislature devised a politically palatable way to expand Medicaid under President Obama’s health care law. They won permission to use federal expansion funds to buy private insurance for as many as 250,000 poor people instead of adding them to traditional Medicaid, which conservatives disparage as a broken entitlement program. But just as the idea is catching fire in other states with Republican or divided leadership — Iowa has adopted a version of the plan, and New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Utah and other states are exploring similar avenues — Arkansas may abruptly reverse course, potentially leaving the 83,000 people who have signed up so far without insurance as soon as July 1…”
• Medicaid puts more clients in managed care, by Phil Galewitz, February 10, 2014, USA Today: “Inside his family’s trailer home, Israel Cortes sits in his bomber jacket at the kitchen table, doing his best to talk despite the tracheotomy tube in his throat. Communicating in whispers and handwritten notes, Cortes, 60, is frustrated at the slow pace of his recovery from a stroke but relieved to be home with his mother and brother after four months in a nursing home. ‘The nursing home was a place to go and die,’ he tells his case worker from Sunshine Health, a Medicaid managed care plan. Jodie Muenz, a social worker by training who helped Cortes get home before Christmas, assures him that he is getting better and will be able to drive soon. ‘Focus on the positive,’ she says, after inspecting the trailer to make sure he can get around safely with his cane…”