CHHSM, JWM Advocacy Alerts: Medicaid Waivers Threaten Health Care Coverage for Millions

The UCC’s Council for Health and Human Service Ministries and Justice and Witness Ministries today (Feb. 7) sent alerts imploring CHHSM members and UCC members to take action to prevent a loss of health care coverage for vulnerable populations.

On Jan. 30, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a plan that would allow states to use the Medicaid waiver process to fundamentally alter Medicaid. The CMS proposal would make sweeping, detrimental changes in eligibility, health benefits, drug coverage, and premium costs for people who now receive Medicaid healthcare coverage as part of the program’s expansion which occurred under the Affordable Care Act.

Under the CMS proposal, states would be able to use the waiver process to make dramatic changes to their Medicaid programs which have the frightening potential to strip coverage from the many millions of people who currently have it. Specifically, the proposed changes would jeopardize the health and health coverage of people in 37 states who currently are covered under Medicaid expansion.

“One in five Americans are enrolled in Medicaid. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, eligibility was expanded to include low-income adults — that expansion includes some 17 million people,” says Michael J. Readinger, president and CEO of CHHSM. “Medicaid serves low-income adults, non-elderly adults with disabilities, people who are pregnant, and children. It’s a critical program that guarantees health coverage for our most vulnerable people, and these changes will have severe consequences for access to health care. CHHSM encourages all of our member agencies — and all UCC members — to contact state and local officials to voice your concern.”

Send an email to Congressional leaders at JWM’s alert page — an easy to create, one-step way to contact members of Congress.

The CHHSM Advocacy Alert also includes links to Congressional phone numbers and twitter handles, along with suggested wording for phone messages and tweets.

Read the CHHSM Advocacy Alert and #BeAVoiceCHHSM.