Simplifying New York’s Medicaid Enrollment Process Will Help More Enroll, Op-Ed Says

New York state should consider reinstating the simplified enrollment process it used for a short period of time after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center to give New York City residents temporary Medicaid benefits, Philip Coltoff, executive director and CEO of the children's welfare agency The Children's Aid Society, writes in a Newsday op-ed (Coltroff, Newsday, 4/17). After the Sept. 11 attacks, several hundred thousand city residents received immediate health benefits through the Disaster Relief Medicaid program by completing a one-page application that stated they met income requirements, which range from $716 per month for childless adults to $2,626 per month for a family with four children. The simplified enrollment process, which was created because the collapse of the World Trade Center cut a link between Medicaid officials in Albany and the computer system that processed applications in New York City, expired Jan. 31. People applying for Medicaid benefits now must go through a "more cumbersome process," which includes an eight-page application and face-to-face interviews (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 1/22). According to Coltoff, advocates for the uninsured "have long thought" that the "onerous application process" has precluded many eligible residents from receiving Medicaid benefits. The Disaster Relief Medicaid program proves that "it isn't the stigma that keeps eligible" state residents from enrolling in Medicaid, but rather the enrollment process, Coltoff says. Coltoff states that the simplified enrollment process was a "great success," enrolling more than 370,000 New Yorkers, because the "complex Medicaid application process was stripped down to the basics." He adds that the simplified process allowed health workers to "focus on access to care" instead of "trying to walk families through the byzantine process of obtaining public health insurance." Although state lawmakers in mid-January passed legislation that will eliminate some of the barriers to accessing and retaining Medicaid coverage by 2003, "far greater simplification is needed," Coltoff adds. He states, "We would like to think that the tragic events of last fall have so profoundly changed us as a state, and so permanently realigned our priorities, that it is no longer acceptable to impede New Yorkers' access to public health insurance with an obstacle course of questions and documentation requirements that are not required by federal law." Coltoff concludes, "We need to keep Medicaid enrollment simple, and keep our health care dollars focused on delivering affordable, quality health care" (Newsday, 4/17).