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This brief describes the intersection between Medicaid and SNAP and discusses how information from SNAP may be leveraged by states when implementing the new Medicaid work requirements.
With the recent governors’ elections in Kentucky and Louisiana refocusing attention on state Medicaid expansion decisions, a newly updated issue brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation provides an overview of the waivers obtained by six states – Arkansas, Iowa, Michigan, Indiana, New Hampshire and Montana -- that are pursuing alternative Medicaid expansions under the Affordable Care Act.
A new issue brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that Arkansas’ “private option” Medicaid expansion has helped reduce the number of uninsured and bring down uncompensated care costs while strengthening the state’s ACA marketplace.
A federal district court has set aside the HHS Secretary’s approval of Medicaid waivers with work and reporting requirements and other eligibility and enrollment restrictions in Kentucky and Arkansas. For context as this all develops, we asked MaryBeth Musumeci, Associate Director at the Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured, three questions about the implications of the decisions.
This brief presents perspectives of enrollees and safety net providers about Arkansas' new Section 1115 Medicaid waiver work and reporting requirements based on focus groups and interviews. The discussions examine enrollees’ awareness of the new requirements and ability to set up online accounts for monthly reporting; the effect of the new requirements on enrollees’ work and common barriers to work; enrollees’ experience with monthly reporting; impacts on particular populations, such as those with disabilities or who are homeless; and the anticipated effects of coverage losses resulting from the new requirements.
Arkansas is one of seven states for which CMS has approved a Section 1115 waiver to condition Medicaid eligibility on meeting work and reporting requirements and the first state to implement this type of waiver. The new requirements were phased in for most enrollees ages 30-49 beginning in June 2018, and for individuals ages 19-29 starting in January 2019. Unless exempt, enrollees must engage in 80 hours of work or other qualifying activities each month and must report their work or exemption status by the 5th of the following month using an online portal; as of mid-December 2018, they also may report by phone. Monthly data related to the new requirements released by the Arkansas Department of Human Services show that over 18,000 people were disenrolled from Medicaid for failure to comply with the new requirements in 2018. Those who fail to comply with the requirements for any three months in 2019 can lose coverage beginning in April 2019. This brief looks at data for January 2019. Separate reports look at early implementation of the new requirements and enrollee experiences.
Based on stakeholder interviews and early data on coverage, reduced uncompensated care costs, and other topics, this issue brief provides an initial look at implementation of Arkansas' Section 1115 Medicaid expansion demonstration waiver to require most adults newly eligible for Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion to enroll in Marketplace plans.
This brief examines the experiences of low-income adults in three states that have made varied Medicaid expansion decisions: Ohio, which adopted the ACA Medicaid expansion, Arkansas which implemented the Medicaid expansion through a “Private Option” waiver, and Missouri, which has not adopted the expansion. While Arkansas and Ohio implemented the expansion in different ways, participants in both states described how obtaining coverage improved their ability to access care, contributing to improvements in their ability to work and family relationships. In contrast, participants in Missouri remained uninsured limiting their ability to obtain needed care, creating significant stress and anxiety in their lives, and interfering with their ability to work and care for their families.
This fact sheet provides an overview of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (Innovation Center)'s State Innovation Models (SIM) initiative. It focuses on the delivery system and payment approaches that Model Testing states are taking and discusses what SIM means for Medicaid. Six states – Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon, and Vermont -- received Model Testing awards to implement and test their Innovation Plans over 42 months.
This issue brief analyzes the impact of the four measures intended to safeguard coverage for people with disabilities and others who should not have been subject to the work and reporting requirements. It draws on data newly available from Arkansas’ 2018 annual waiver report to CMS and monthly data released by the state while the requirements were in effect. The data reveal that few people used these safeguard measures relative to the number of people who lost coverage due to the new requirements. Among those who accessed the safeguards, the vast majority did so due to disability/other health issues or technical issues such as those related to reporting.
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