VoxCare
By: Sarah Kliff
Last spring, Oregon legislators were weighing the idea of ending their Medicaid expansionto close a growing hole in the state budget. This would have made Oregon the first state in the country to back out of the Affordable Care Act program expanding coverage to millions of low-income Americans.
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Meanwhile, Mississippi is proposing work requirements for especially poor Medicaid enrollees.
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Here’s what Georgetown’s Joan Alker, one of the smartest Medicaid experts I know (follow her on Twitter!) says about the Mississippi waiver: “These families are living in deep poverty and already facing many challenges. Housing instability is very high in this income bracket – if families aren’t literally homeless they are often doubled up with family or friends and living on the edge. Using the numbers provided in the Mississippi application, we estimate that enrollment will decline by approximately 5,000 persons in the first year of the demonstration. We assume the decrease in enrollment is either because individuals now enrolled will be disenrolled, or because individuals who would otherwise enroll will not do so because they cannot meet the work requirement or are deterred by it.”
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Read more here.