Just four days before the rollout, on March 27, the state Department ot Healthcare and Family Services was told by federal CMS to delay implementation. An HFS client notice, dated March 29, explains that the people impacted by this delay would be those who chose or were assigned to an MCO in the expansion counties for an April 1, 2018 or later effective date AND were receiving LTSS services through the following programs:

* Nursing Home or LTC facility (non-MMAI dual eligible)

For now, these clients will continue to receive "the old way" and continue to bill the Department of Aging for services.

This latest expansion was to have brought the remaining 72 state's 102 counties into managed care,

Did you know that...
* Nearly 38% of children in America are covered by Medicaid.
* Medicaid covers 76% of poor children.
* Medicaid covers 48% of children with special health needs.
* Medicaid covers close to half of children ages 0-3.
* 49% of births are covered by Medicaid.
* 17% of parents have health insurance through Medicaid.
* In 2010, Medicaid kept 2.6 million Americans out of poverty.

National Protect Our Care has created a fact sheet explaining what these statistics mean to the American economy and the well-being of all citizens, along with a rundown of threats of ways the program is threatened.

A bill filed this week in the Illinois House by Rep. Theresa Mah would phase out the practice of people with disabilities being paid less than minimum wage.  

New Hampshire was the first state to ban the practice, and several others, such as Alaska, have followed. Mother Jones recently did a roundup of the state of subminimum wage and recent challenges to it.

The Kaiser Health Tracking Poll gives a great overview on the public's perception of the ACA, the effectiveness of Medicaid, and politicians' perceptions of the purpose behind work requirements.

In brief: ACA favorability is higher than ever. A majority of people, both Democrats and Republicans, have a favorable view of Medicaid. And legislators aren't quite sure why their state has work requirements. Read the full results

Monday, April 23 is the end of the comment period on the so-called "short-term insurance plans" which deny coverage to people with preexisting conditions, exclude expensive conditions and bring back lifetime caps. Loosening the restrictions on these plans is one of the recent ways foes of the ACA are working to undermine its protections.

These types of plans were featured in our February newsletter. See this tweet thread for an update and plan of action.

The deadline to comment is 11pm CT April 23rd.

John Jansa

Smart Policy Works