By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
TOPEKA, Dec. 12
Since July, 4,000 children and pregnant women have been kept from the state”s Medicaid and HealthWave rolls because they couldn”t prove their citizenship.
Another 14,000 are parked on waiting lists, sometimes for months.
Meanwhile, some of the women and children waiting for eligibility determinations all of them low-income and uninsured are expected to either show up in hospital emergency rooms or at safety-net clinics when they need care.
Whatever costs hospitals incur treating them
will either be absorbed or passed on to their insured patients.
“It”s not a pretty picture,” Kansas Health Policy Authority Executive Director Marci Nielsen said Tuesday, addressing the monthly meeting of the agency”s board.
Under the federal Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, Medicaid and HealthWave applicants must be able to to show proof of identity and citizenship to be eligible for services. Those who cannot are denied.
The law was intended to keep illegal immigrants from receiving federal benefits.
But there”s little evidence, Nielsen said, that significant numbers of illegal immigrants were on Medicaid or HealthWave. And state officials said it”s become apparent that most of those being denied in Kansas are either from here or moved here from another state.
“The largest impact of this has been on eligible Kansans,” said health policy authority deputy director Andy Allison.
Allison said some families have one or two children eligible for Medicaid or HealthWave and one or two who are not, depending on the documents their parents are able to produce.
Historically, about 70 percent of the state”s Medicaid and HealthWave applicants are found to be eligible. So it”s safe to assume, Nielsen said, that about 9,800 applicants on the state”s waiting list are going without coverage for which they”re eligible.
The new requirements have overwhelmed the state clearinghouse that processes Medicaid and HealthWave applications.
Phone calls to the clearing house, Allison said, have increased from 23,000 a month to 49,000 a month; voicemails have gone from 1,200 to 11,000 a month.
The clearing house is receiving 6,000 faxes a month. “The fax machines run all night,” Allison said.
Because the law was passed after lawmakers set the health policy authority”s budget, there”s no money to hire additional staff, Allison said.
“This has gummed up the works,” he said.
Allison and Nielsen on Feb. 14 will lead a delegation to Washington, D.C., in hopes of getting Congress to rescind the new law.
Earlier this week, health policy authority chairwoman Connie Hubbell sent an editorial column to the state”s newspapers, calling attention to the new law”s shortcomings.
Board members were united in their dismay over new law”s unintended consequences. But reaction to the lobbying campaign was mixed.
Board member Arneatha Martin expressed frustration over there being little or no discussion on how illegal immigrants find their way on to Medicaid.
“It”s happening,” she said. “We just don”t want to talk about it.”
Martin also wondered if stories about the difficulties in coming up with birth certificates were exaggerated.
Board member E.J. “Ned” Holland warned that the campaign to get the law changed was misguided, noting that it focused too much on the bureaucracy”s troubles, not enough on children and families.
No one, he said, will care about a bureaucracy”s claim that it”s overloaded.
Dave Ranney is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at
dranney@khi.org
or at 785-233-5443, ext. 128.