BEYOND THE NUMBERS
Medicaid Is Key to Implementing Olmstead’s Community Integration Requirements for People With Disabilities
Nineteen years ago today, the Supreme Court found in Olmstead v. L.C. that states and localities must generally serve people with disabilities in the community rather than in institutions when community-based services can meet their needs. Over the last 19 years, the Olmstead decision has helped many people with disabilities live in their community rather than an institution...
American Indians and Alaska Natives Would Be Disproportionately Hurt By Proposals to Take Away Medicaid from People Not Meeting Work Requirements
The Trump Administration reportedly said that it will not exempt American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) from its new...
New Hampshire Medicaid Waiver Will Reduce Coverage and Access to Care
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has approved New Hampshire’s waiver proposal to take away Medicaid from people not working or engaged in qualifying work activities for 100 hours per month. Under the Obama...
Medicaid Continues to Help Schools Help Children
School superintendents confirm Medicaid’s key role in schools, especially for children with disabilities. In a recent survey of 1,000 superintendents, 57 percent of districts reported that they’d have trouble meeting special education mandates without Medicaid funding. That’s just one...
Kentucky’s Medicaid Waiver Gives State Unprecedented Power to Raise Premiums, Impose Fines
While giving Kentucky the unprecedented ability to require Medicaid beneficiaries to work or engage in work-related activities through the state’s Medicaid waiver, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) gave the state additional first-of-its-kind...
Trump Should Have Proposed “Money Follows the Person” Funding
In his 2019 budget, President Trump missed an opportunity to propose reauthorizing the Money Follows the Person (MFP) demonstration, which since 2007 has helped over 75,000 Medicaid beneficiaries in 44 states who need long-term services and supports transition from institutions back to their own...
Kentucky’s Waiver Will Increase Uncompensated Care for Hospitals, Safety Net Providers
Kentucky’s Medicaid waiver, which the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently approved, jeopardizes not just coverage for hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries but also the finances of hospitals and other safety net providers. Rather than test new ways to advance Medicaid’s core mission of ensuring that low-income people can get the health care they need —...
Trump Reversal of Medicaid Family Planning Guidance Doesn’t Change Federal Law
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently rescinded its guidance of April 2016 reaffirming Medicaid law’s “free choice of provider” provision, which allows beneficiaries to receive family planning services from all qualified providers of such services. CMS’ reversal raises concerns that...
Medicaid Criteria Changes Don’t Ensure Waivers Will Further Program Objectives
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has revised its criteria for approving demonstration projects (or “waivers”) for states to test new ways to deliver health care to low-income people through Medicaid — and, in doing so, it signaled that the Trump Administration plans to approve proposals that won’t promote Medicaid’s objectives.
Medicaid’s core mission is to provide...
