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Jan 22, 2009

New Medicaid Resource For Those Waiting?

This is from the summary of one of the economic recovery bills being considered in the House Ways and Means Committee today (emphasis added):
MEDICAID: Provides states the option of offering coverage to unemployed workers through their Medicaid programs, with the federal government matching 100 percent of the costs of benefits and administration. States could offer coverage to individuals who are unemployed and uninsured and fall into one or more of the following three categories:
(1) individuals (and their dependents) who receive unemployment insurance benefits or who have exhausted unemployment insurance benefits;
(2) individuals (and their dependents) who have income below 200 percent FPL [Federal Poverty Level] ($42,400 for a family of 4 and are not otherwise eligible for Medicaid or CHIP[Child Health Insurance Program];
(3) individuals (and their dependents) receiving food stamps who are not otherwise eligible for Medicaid or CHIP.

In all cases, the individual must be involuntarily separated from employment between September 1, 2008 and December 31, 2010 and remain unemployed.
I have a question. Does the term "involuntarily separated" include individuals who are forced to leave employment due to illness? If so, this would quickly become an important resource for people who are waiting and waiting for Social Security to act upon their disability claims.

Update: The text of the bill is now available. Take a look at the bill, particularly §3003, and see if you can find an answer to my question. I cannot. This seems to be something the Congress needs to address.

1 comment:

  1. If one of these "Care Package" bills is called a economic recovery bill one more time I'm going to scream.

    ReplyDelete