Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Medicaid Recipients Caught Surprised As Appointments, Medicines Canceled
Politico: Thousands Lose Medicaid In Arkansas: Is This America’s Future?
Twaniesha Boose was surprised to get a call from her doctor recently canceling her appointment because her Medicaid was terminated. The reason surprised her even more. Boose lost her health insurance because she failed to submit paperwork to help the state collect the child support she is owed. “What’s that got to do with me, the kids’ dad?” she said on a 90-degree June day inside a stuffy, unairconditioned community center in Marvell, where Legal Aid attorneys tried to help people who had recently lost their Medicaid. “If you don’t cooperate, they turn off everything.” (Messerly, 6/14)
Politico: Meet 5 Arkansans Who Are Worried About Their Family’s Medicaid
Anxiety is high in Arkansas as the state decides how many of its more than 1 million Medicaid recipients should keep their health insurance. Not only is Arkansas one of the poorest states in the nation — more than a third of its residents are enrolled in the health insurance program for low-income people — but the state is rushing to complete its review of whether people who kept their Medicaid during the pandemic are still eligible for it in six months, instead of the 12 months the Biden administration has recommended. (Messerly, 6/14)
WLRN: 'Trying To Survive': Families Dropped From Medicaid Seek Reinstatement
Vanessa Brito, a public policy analyst and community activist in Miami, has been busy on Facebook alerting Medicaid recipients around Florida to make sure they haven’t been booted off the government medical insurance program for low-income families and individuals. “I'm getting people that are either going to the doctor or going to the pharmacy to pick up their refill for the month and they're being told, 'Well, your Medicaid is no longer active,'" Brito said. ... One of her Facebook followers, Melissa, who asked WLRN not to use her last name because she worries speaking out might impact her employment, said she got no notice from state officials. She lives in Titusville, near Cape Canaveral, and her children recently lost Medicaid. "We never got anything telling us to re-certify," she said. "We never got anything saying we were booted out of the system.” (Zaragovia, 6/15)
The 19th: Loss Of Medicaid Dental Coverage Greatly Impacts Pregnant People, Researcher Says
Over a million Americans have begun losing Medicaid coverage, among them postpartum parents who relied on it for dental care that helped protect their health during pregnancy and beyond. (Barber, 6/14)
In other Medicaid news —
Montana Free Press: Montana Governor Boosts Medicaid Payments For Health Care Providers By Hundreds Of Millions
Gov. Greg Gianforte on Wednesday announced signing the state’s roughly $14.3 billion primary budget bill, creating a roadmap for funding state government for the next two years and substantially increasing reimbursement rates for health care providers who care for Medicaid patients. (Silvers, 6/14)
NJ Spotlight News: Hospital System To Leave NJ Medicaid Network, Could Send Special-Needs Kids Scrambling For Care
South Jersey families with children who need highly specialized health care are worried about what will happen after a Delaware-based children’s hospital system with a growing presence here leaves New Jersey’s Medicaid network, a withdrawal that begins Aug. 1.Nemours Children’s Health alerted New Jersey patients and doctors in late April that it will no longer accept new cases under the state’s Medicaid managed-care plans, which insure almost 97% of the 2.3 million residents in the state- and federally funded program, after that date. (Stainton, 6/15)
Stat: Health Insurance Stocks Tumble On UnitedHealth Comments
Atop executive at UnitedHealth Group said Tuesday that the health insurance and services conglomerate has noticed “a meaningfully higher number” of outpatient visits among Medicare patients in the second quarter of this year. The trend indicates a lot of older adults are getting care they had previously put off, which would eat into insurers’ earnings. (Herman, 6/14)
