We’ve asked you to do a lot in the last few weeks, in addition to all you do anyway. Thank you. You’ve probably heard that funding for the MassHealth Outreach and Enrollment Grant program, line item 4000-0352, is still in the budget, which means the commitment to your work continues.
The plan is for grant funding to come from several sources rather than just one. The majority will come from an organization we are just learning about: the Massachusetts Health and Educational Facilities Authority. MassHealth and the Connector will make up the balance of the funding. Once we know more, we’ll let you know how this should all work. In the meantime, thank you for all your effort to preserve a service so essential to the people’s health and the success of health care reform.
In other MassHealth-specific 9C good news, the state reports no plans to cap enrollments or change eligibility rules. This makes these 9C cuts really different from the last time around, and has required MassHealth to find significant ways to save money in other areas. Neil Cronin of the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute wrote on Health Care for All’s blog about some of the other cuts MassHealth is considering.
We know that the 9C cuts are broad and represent cuts to many important programs; the continuation of outreach and enrollment funding is wonderful, but we also want to know how things are going overall... How are you doing through all this? How are your clients?
9C cuts
So far, we know that our grant funds from the AIDS Bureau will not be cut but we have received notice that our maternal child health funds, particularly the Women of Child-Bearing Age and Adolescent health grant will be cut...but not how much. I assume we'll have to absorb the cut in the January-June half of the budget so if we sustain a 10% cut, it will actualy be a 20% cut on the program. This grant supports RN Case Management of pregenant women and nursing/nutrition/behavioral health/tobacco cessation services for women and adolescents. Painful!
9C cuts and Prescription Advantage
We are hearing that middle class people are going to be eliminated from eligibility for Prescription Advantage, and that the new income limits will be 23,400 for an individual (down from 31,200 - 52,000) and 31,500 for a couple (down from 42,00-70,000).
From a policy point of view, this is a natural place to make a cut. PA is probably the most generous "SPAP" in the nation. However, the people who will be eliminated are the same people who are hearing that they're not eligible for fuel assistance and who "locked in" rates at $4.50-5.00/gallon only to see the prices fall a month later. They will feel like no one cares.
I am wondering whether any consideration was given to raising the copays on PA; the $7/18 and $12/30 caps have been in place since 2001.
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