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Published: September 2009

Health reform should provide quick and efficient coverage for Medicaid enrollees

Coalition: Healthcare

Consumer Action signed onto a letter asking Senators Reid, Baucus, Harkin, and Dodd to ensure that any improvements to Medicaid in the health reform bill are implemented on the same schedule as other health coverage improvements and that newly eligible Medicaid enrollees receive adequate health coverage.

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Below is the full text of the letter:

The health reform bills you are now merging from the Finance and HELP Committees make a much-needed and laudable improvement in health care coverage for poor people. The proposed legislation would increase nationwide eligibility for the Medicaid safety net to at least 133 percent of the federal poverty level – an annual income of $24,352 for a family of three. We very much appreciate this and thank you.

Expanding Medicaid eligibility is crucially important: Today, in half the states, parents in three-person households earning more than $12,268 a year are considered “too rich” to qualify for Medicaid. Even worse, for adults without dependent children (singles and childless couples), in 42 states those adults can literally be penniless and they do not qualify for the Medicaid safety net.     

As you make this noteworthy improvement in the merged bill, we urge you to take care of two matters.  First, we urge you to ensure that the Medicaid improvements are implemented on the same schedule as other health coverage improvements. The Finance Committee bill delays implementation of the Medicaid improvements until 2014, later than other coverage expansions. It makes little sense to isolate the poor for later help, both because they need help the most and because it leaves the critical Medicaid expansion politically vulnerable to further delay or possible subsequent evisceration.  

Second, we urge you to ensure that newly eligible Medicaid enrollees receive adequate health coverage.  The Finance Committee proposal provides coverage at the “bronze” level for newly eligible Medicaid enrollees -- the least coverage provided in the bill, less than what people with higher incomes will receive through the exchanges. This inequity should be corrected. Fixing this is especially important if states are not allowed to use their discretion to upgrade that coverage.

Lead Organization

Families USA

Other Organizations

American Cancer Society – Cancer Action Network | American Diabetes Association | American Friends Service Committee | American Heart Association/American Stroke Association | Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law | Center for Community Change | Child Welfare League of America | Coalition on Human Needs | Easter Seals | Evangelical Lutheran Church in America | Families USA | National Association of Community Health Centers | National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Directors | National Center for Law and Economic Justice | National Coalition of Mental Health Professionals and Consumers | National Council of Churches of Christ USA | National Council of Jewish Women | National Health Law Program | National Hispanic Health Foundation National Hispanic Medical Association | National Medical Association | National Partnership for Women and Families | National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness | National Women’s Law Center | NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby | Office for Interfaith & Community Alliances, Islamic Society of North America | PICO National Network | Presbyterian Church, (U.S.A.), Washington Office | Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need | RESULTS Service Employees International Union | Union of Reform Judaism | United Church of Christ, Justice and Witness Ministries | Women of Reform Judaism

More Information

Families USA

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