New York’s Disaster Medicaid Program a Success, Wall Street Journal Says

New York's temporary Medicaid program, which was instituted after the Sept. 11 attacks, has "proved a model of success," the Wall Street Journal reports (Wall Street Journal, 11/14). Under the program, called Disaster Relief Medicaid, New York City residents applying for Medicaid before Jan. 31, 2002, could receive up to four months of coverage if they signed a statement saying they met income requirements, ranging from $716 per month for an adult without children to $2,626 per month for a family with four children (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 11/26/01). The streamlined application process also included one interview of 30 minutes or less, compared with the standard two or three one-hour-long interviews for each applicant, the Journal reports. In four months after the state instituted the simplified process, 350,000 low-income New York residents enrolled in the program, eight times the expected number of qualified applicants (Wall Street Journal, 11/14). Once the temporary coverage expires, beneficiaries have to complete the regular Medicaid application (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 11/26/01). Approximately 50% of beneficiaries in the temporary program have applied for traditional Medicaid, and about 75% of them qualify.

Making the Changes Permanent
The temporary program shows that "bureaucratic hurdles" in the traditional application process "are as critical an impediment to coverage as actual eligibility," the Journal reports. Kathryn Haslanger, a vice president at the United Hospital Fund of New York, one of the groups that helped fund and organize the enrollment effort after Sept. 11, said, "We learned if you devise a process that makes sense to people, it sells itself." The state will likely conduct an independent analysis to support the "anecdotal" findings that the streamlined application process eased access to care and did not encourage fraud. Even with New York state's experience, the federal government appears "reluctant" to permanently ease the Medicaid enrollment process, which could lead to larger Medicaid rolls and "further strain tight health care budgets," the Journal reports (Hensley, Wall Street Journal, 11/14).