By Martha Heberlein
As the Energy and Commerce Committee searches for options to save the Department of Defense from cuts, coverage for millions of children, parents, pregnant women, the elderly, and people with disabilities could end up on the chopping block. This is just one of a number of distressing offsets that also includes repealing exchange establishment grants and the prevention and public health fund established under the ACA.
Specifically, the Committee is considering rolling back the stability protections (aka the maintenance of effort requirements) in the ACA that have been vitally important in maintaining an affordable coverage option for children and families during these turbulent economic times. If these protections were rescinded, coverage for more than a third of Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries would be placed at risk as states could reduce coverage to mandatory federal minimum levels in Medicaid and scale back or even entirely eliminate their CHIP programs. (Last time this ugly provision reared its head, CBO estimated that over half of states would take this route.)
Even people who remain eligible for coverage will be vulnerable to cuts through “backdoor” strategies as states would be able to re-introduce red-tape barriers to coverage. While not as obvious as reducing eligibility levels, these “backdoor” strategies for depressing enrollment can be extremely effective at cutting coverage and close to half of all states used such strategies during the last recession. In contrast, during the most recent recession, Medicaid and CHIP coverage remained stable in nearly all states, while 29 went beyond holding steady by taking steps to improve coverage through targeted expansions and simplifications during 2011. This stability in coverage explains why the number of uninsured children remains at record low levels despite sharp jumps in poverty and uninsured rates for adults.
Preliminary estimates out of CBO suggest that the repeal of the stability protections would generate a relatively paltry $1.4 billion in federal savings. Yet such a move has the potential to knock millions of people off of coverage, with children at the greatest risk of losing out. As Congress pursues deficit reduction plans and attempts to avoid the upcoming sequestration, it should seriously consider the impact such one-sided approaches have on the most vulnerable among us.
