The problems plaguing the beleaguered healthcare.gov web site continue to make it difficult for people to find new health insurance, but a new approach devised by the federal government will make it easier for Medicaid applicants to overcome this problem.
While the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) was having trouble sending completed Medicaid and CHIP applications to the states, it continued sending them basic data from Medicaid and CHIP applications on a weekly basis primarily to help them gauge possible interest in Medicaid enrollment.  Now, it is telling states they can use this limited data to enroll such individuals in their Medicaid programs without complete applications.
This process is expected to facilitate enrollment in states that have chosen to expand eligibility for their Medicaid programs.  To date, Medicaid enrollment has been one of the brightest aspects of the troubled launch of the Affordable Care Act’s insurance expansion.  While Pennsylvania is not expanding its Medicaid program at this time, the process could facilitate the enrollment of so-called woodwork applicants:  people who are already eligible for Medicaid and never enrolled but have been drawn to do so by all of the attention the Medicaid expansion and Affordable Care Act have received.
To learn more about the CMS workaround to this problem, read this Kaiser Health News report or read the letter CMS sent to state Medicaid directors describing how this process will work.