Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
On Heels Of Successful Medicaid Expansion Initiatives, Red State Lawmakers Mull Ballot Restrictions
The Wall Street Journal: Voter Initiatives, Including Medicaid Expansion, Could Get Harder To Pass
Some Republican lawmakers are moving to curtail future state voter initiatives, posing a possible obstacle to supporters of Medicaid expansion, who are already locked in a bitter fight to preserve initiatives passed in the November midterm elections. Lawmakers in Florida and Missouri are weighing legislation to make ballot initiatives more challenging by charging fees, mandating more petition signatures or requiring more votes for passage. Both states are likely to be targeted by organizers for Medicaid-expansion petition drives in 2020 because they are among states that haven’t broadened the program but allow for voter-led ballot initiatives. (Armour, 2/17)
CQ: States Once Again Grappling With How To Expand Medicaid Programs
This year promises to be an active one for Medicaid, as more states seek to impose work requirements on enrollees in the health-insurance program for the poor and others try to restrict eligibility as a way to hold down costs. A few more states are working on expansions of their programs to comply with ballot initiatives approved by voters last year. At the same time, advocates for Medicaid expansion are worried the Trump administration will try to cap federal allocations to the states, in effect turning it into a block grant program as long proposed by Republicans. (Raman, 2/19)
NPR: Medicaid In Arkansas Has Lost Thousands Of People From Its Rolls
Grisel Sustache Flores takes a seat at a health clinic in Springdale, Ark., for low-income patients. The 46-year old Puerto Rico native says she learned last fall that she qualified for Medicaid, which Arkansas expanded under the Affordable Care Act to cover more adults. It would cost her only $13 a month, so Flores, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, eagerly signed up. "My doctors in Puerto Rico say my condition is very difficult," Flores says through an interpreter at the Community Clinic facility. "Every day, it gets harder and harder." (Froelich, 2/18)
Kansas City Star: Maximus Says Computer Software Causing KanCare Problems
Herbert Shaffer worked for decades doing carpentry, building metal outbuildings and stripping out old railroad boxcars, all the while paying taxes in Kansas and pinching what pennies were left for later in life. Like many Americans, he outlived those savings after he moved into a nursing home. So last March, his daughter, Nyoka Isabell, helped him apply for Medicaid to pay for his bed at Lakeview Village in Lenexa. Then they waited. And waited. (Marso, 2/18)
