Medicaid
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The Benefit Bank has delivered $287,641,161 in Medical Benefits
Medicaid is the United States health program for eligible individuals and families with low incomes and resources.
Created on July 30, 1965 through Title XIX of the Social Security Act, each state administers its own Medicaid program while the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) monitors the state-run programs and establishes requirements for service delivery, quality, funding, and eligibility standards. |
Medicaid serves the nation's most vulnerable children, parents, pregnant women, seniors and disabled individuals. Medicaid constitutes roughly 21% of state budgets. Recent reports show that enrollment hit almost 47 million in June 2009 - up 7.75% over 2008! For the first time since the early 1990s, enrollment has grown in every state.
Nationally, even as the overall uninsured rate has climbed during the recession, the percentage of uninsured children has continued to drop. A federal study reported that the percentage of uninsured children fell to 8.2 percent in 2009 down from 12.3 percent at the beginning of this past decade. While these overall trends are encouraging, there are still hundreds of thousands of children that remain uninsured.
The Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Obama on March 23, 2010, permits states to receive federal funding for providing Medicaid coverage to adults with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL), or $14,400 for an individual in 2010. Prior to passage of health care reform, states could only cover childless adults by applying for a waiver of Medicaid rules. These waivers were temporary and states had to meet strict criteria for approval and renewal. The Affordable Care Act requires states to cover all low-income individuals in Medicaid starting in 2014, but also allows states to get federal funding to enroll them right away.
CMS approved Connecticut's state plan amendment on June 21, 2010, making it the first in the nation to take up this new option. Connecticut estimates that approximately 45,000 adults will become eligible for Medicaid under this health reform expansion.
sources:
USA TODAY, National Center for Health Statistics, Kaiser Health News |
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