Protect Medicaid Funding: Enrollment and Continuity, Issue 8 (Updated Feb. 2017)

Executive Summary

Medicaid provides proven, tailored health care coverage for low-income individuals and families. NHeLP’s Health Policy Director Leonardo Cuello and Senior Policy Analyst David Machledt explain how Medicaid’s “core consumer protections make the program work for enrolled populations, including children, parents, pregnant women, low-income workers, older adults, and people with disabilities.” In the eighth issue of NHeLP’s Protect Medicaid Funding series, Cuello and Machledt detail how enrollment and continuity rules are vital to beneficiaries, and how conservative proposals to limit Medicaid funding would imperil health care coverage for tens of millions of Americans. This piece was updated in February 2017 with a personal story from Jenny and her family. Jenny and her husband are freelance artists with two children living in Massachusetts. They were able to obtain health care coverage for the entire family via the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid. When Jenny was diagnosed with breast cancer in fall 2014, the family’s coverage provided her access to specialized care through a state Medicaid program. Conservative proposals to repeal the ACA and Medicaid expansion place in jeopardy the quality health care coverage that has proven to be lifeline for families like Jenny’s.