Medicaid Enrollment on the Rise
More people are enrolling in Medicaid, and much of the increase is driven by the COVID-19 emergency.
Or so reports the organization Families USA in a new study.
According to the study,
Over half of the 38 states reporting monthly enrollment through May or later have seen greater than 7% growth in enrollment since February. For the eight states reporting August enrollment, their average enrollment growth since February is approximately 11%.
But the implications are even greater, according to the analysis, which found that in large part because of COVID-19 job loss,
Medicaid enrollment among the 38 states reporting has already increased by 4.3 million people and is poised to increase much more in the near future. Analysis by Health Management Associates projects that up to 27 million people will lose their job-based insurance this year and that Medicaid will see an increase in enrollment of up to 18 million people by the end of 2020, depending on the severity of the economic downturn.
The effects of COVID-19 job loss and accompanying loss of insurance already appears to be visible in Pennsylvania, where Medicaid enrollment rose from 2.84 million in March of 2020 to 2.89 million in April, 2.94 million in May, and 2.977 million in June. Growing Medicaid enrollment poses a challenge for Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals because they care for so many low-income patients and payments from the state’s Medicaid program often do not cover the cost of the care they provide.
Learn more about the nation-wide trend in the Families USA report “Rapid Increases in Medicaid Enrollment: A Review of Data from Six Months.”
The cut was mandated by the 2010 Affordable Care Act but has never been implemented.
In the guidance, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services explains that because of several court rulings, states can decide for themselves whether to offset third-party payer payments from costs in their Medicaid DSH calculations for periods prior to June 2, 2017 but that beginning with that date, CMS will enforce its own interpretation of the policy.
Included in this month’s edition are articles about:
Governor Wolf
The Department of Human Services (DHS) has published a reminder that 
During her daily briefing today, Secretary Levine reported that the number of new COVID-19 cases in Pennsylvania yesterday declined slightly from the day before, although she dismissed this decline as “not statistically significant.” There are now COVID-19 cases in 50 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties. While the number of hospitalizations, ICU cases, and patients put on ventilators remain low, she said those numbers remain in line with trends elsewhere in the country and her department’s own projections.
The Department of Health and Human Services has provided guidance to states asking them to take immediate action to 
The FDA established 
The Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs (DDAP) has issued a document clarifying the state’s response to federal guidance on the disclosure of patients’ substance abuse disorder records during the telehealth process. See that policy clarification 
Since yesterday, the Department of Human Services has issued the following four new guidance documents:
The following summary of PA legislative actions was compiled by Cynthia Fernandez of Spotlight PA and Gillian McGoldrick of Lancaster Online.
CMS Catastrophic Plan Coverage Guidance