Tagged: Medicaid

When the Supreme Court ruled on the Affordable Care Act, it said states must be given a choice about expanding their Medicaid programs.

Option A: Keep things as they are.

Option B: Enroll more people, and the Federal government will help you pay for their care.

Democrat Jackie Cilley likes that second option. She says that if New Hampshire doesn’t grow its Medicaid rolls, poor people will continue to slip through the cracks, and that Republican lawmakers in Concord would bear the blame.

Reporters love to write in a kind of shorthand. And when it comes to Medicaid, the preferred shortcut is, 'the health care program for the poor.'

Q. What does the state have to decide in terms of Medicaid expansion?

A. The Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act gives states the choice to either maintain their current Medicaid program or extend it to more low-income residents. In states that choose to expand, adults who bring home less than $15,000 a year and a family of four who earns less than $30,000 a year will qualify. In New Hampshire, expansion would add about 56,000 people to the state's rolls, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

A group of New Hampshire lawmakers will meet Wednesday to begin discussing how the state should move forward under the nation’s health care law.  One of the big questions for the Joint Health Care Reform Oversight Committee is whether New Hampshire should expand its Medicaid program.

The recent Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act gives states the option to extend Medicaid to more low-income residents. Under the new law, beginning in 2014, an adult who brings home less than $15,000 a year and a family of four with income under about $30,000 will qualify.

This is a closer look at the Supreme Court’s Ruling as it relates to Medicaid in the Granite State. Under the upheld law, an additional 17 million people nationwide are set to become eligible for Medicaid in 2014. That’s a 27 percent increase. The new threshold is $29,000 dollars a year for a family of four.

Federal regulators have given the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Service 30 days to provide information about the state’s Medicaid program.

State and Managed Care company officials met today with the executive council to discuss the contract that would change the state’s Medicaid Program. The councilors have serious concerns, and many questions.

The $2.2 billion dollar proposed contract is the biggest in the history of the state. Supporters say Managed Medicaid would streamline services for the some 130,000 people in the program. Health-care providers worry the new contract may hurt their patients and their business.