New report shows children and parents would benefit from closing Medicaid gap
Published July 17, 2015
by NC Policy Watch, July 16, 2015.
Working parents and their children would receive significant help with health insurance coverage if North Carolina implements a plan to accept federal Medicaid funding set aside for North Carolina, according to a new report released today by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families (CCF) and NC Child. In the report, researchers pointed to several studies that establish the direct connection between insurance coverage for parents and the health of their children.
North Carolina’s parents have some of the highest uninsured rates in the country. North Carolina’s 22% uninsured rate for parents places it 38th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia. About 27% of the North Carolinians expected to benefit if the state extends Medicaid eligibility are parents with children currently in the home.
“People often assume that if you have a job, you have health insurance, but that just isn’t the case for many of North Carolina’s working families,” said Joan Alker of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. “Our report found that most of the uninsured parents that could benefit are working – many of them in jobs that support North Carolina’s service-based economy.”
Most North Carolinians who would be eligible for a plan using new Medicaid funding are working, but cannot afford to buy health insurance on prevailing wages in industries such as retail, construction, or food service. For example, adults who earn between $737 a month and $1,674 a month for a family of three are in this coverage gap and are currently ineligible for either Medicaid or the premium tax credit under the Affordable Care Act.
About 144,000 children in North Carolina are also uninsured. Experience from other states shows that an extremely effective way to reduce the number of uninsured children is to extend coverage to the whole family.
“Offering whole family coverage will help bring down the uninsurance rate for children,” said Michelle Hughes, executive director of NC Child. “Other states have successfully negotiated homegrown plans to bring federal dollars into the state to help working families. If North Carolina fails to develop such a plan, it will exclude many working families from an important leg up in life and the money earmarked for our state will simply go to other states.”
The report goes on to explain that when parents have health coverage, their health and financial status improves along with the well-being of their children.
“When parents don’t have to worry about unpaid medical bills piling up, they can take better care of their own health and devote more time to making sure their children are getting the care they need to succeed,” said Alker.
Research has found that extending Medicaid coverage to parents has a long-term positive impact for children. According to the report, children eligible for Medicaid coverage or who have parents eligible for Medicaid coverage are more likely to be healthier, graduate from college, and succeed financially which in turn leads to more savings for taxpayers.
The report also explained the potential impact of expanding Medicaid coverage on reducing North Carolina’s persistently high infant mortality rate.
“It’s simple—healthier women with regular access to medical care have healthier children,” said Hughes. “If we want to reduce North Carolina’s infant mortality rate and make sure that kids to do well in school, graduate from college and get good jobs later in life, we should make sure their parents have health care,” said Hughes.
The report is available at http://ccf.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/NC-Medicaid-Expansion-Paper.pdf or at http://www.ncchild.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/NC-Medicaid-Expansion-Paper.pdf.
July 17, 2015 at 11:27 am
Richard L Bunce says:
NC PW doing some serious spinning here... taking a general study and applying it to a specific situation, Medicaid expansion in NC.
Medicaid is a very flawed healthcare insurance program. It has the lowest provider reimbursement rates and so many providers do not accept it and most providers strictly limit the percentage of their patients on Medicaid.
A far better solution would have been for the Democratic party majority in Congress in 2010 to have not placed a lower income limit on the ACA Marketplace premium tax credit/subsidy and Cost Share Reduction program. That way these folks would have access to real quality healthcare insurance that is widely accepted in their community. Medicaid (and Medicare using the same idea where any eligible for Medicare would also have access to their Medicare Part A "premium" as Medicare Advantage (Part C) currently does) could then be eliminated.
July 17, 2015 at 11:30 am
Richard L Bunce says:
... oh and some of the people (100%-138% of poverty) eligible for the ACA Marketplace premium tax credit/subsidy and Cost Share Reduction program, will lose their real quality healthcare insurance and be forced into the flawed Medicaid program when the lower income limit for the ACA Marketplace increases to 138% of poverty.
