Medicaid Mental Health Strategy

Medicaid excludes inpatient hospital services other than services in an institution for mental disease. Congress specifically exempted most psychiatric care in state hospitals (Davoli, 2003)

One of the states that have not participated in the Medicaid expansion is Florida. States that are opting out in the Medicaid expansion can leave several citizens uninsured and their health will be at risk. Currently, since the America’s Supreme Court has given the states more flexibility relating to the Affordable Care Act, some states are opting out of the Medicaid expansion plan that is intended to give low-income citizens in the state dependable healthcare. To reasons the state of Florida opting out the Medicaid expansion, the governor of Florida stated, that Floridians are more interested in economic growth and employment, better quality of education for their children, and that they keep the cost of their living low. Florida State is

Problem Statement: The World Health Association defines ‘good’ health as: “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” However, in the United States, access to care and funding for mental health care are grossly neglected and underfunded in comparison to other aspects of health care.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), also referred to as ObamaCare, is a complex U.S healthcare reform that attempts to expand and improve access to healthcare and decrease spending through taxes and regulations. The main goal of the ACA is to provide more Americans with affordable health insurance. States vary in when and how they implemented the ACA in order to meet the needs of their state in hope to decrease the uninsured population. Every state had the option decide whether to offer healthcare through a state-based or a federal marketplace. Some states sued the federal government questioning whether they even had to right to impose this act. New Mexico and Pennsylvania are just two of the states that have had to figure out a way implement the Affordable Care Act. Each one had to take into consideration several factors including their state population, the demographics of that population, how many uninsured people there were, and the economy of their state. They both had the public plans such as Medicaid, Medicare and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) options as well as new federal subsidies that would now be offered depending upon income. Since there is no “one size fits all” health plan each state was challenged to make the best decisions using the tools available to them. This information was then used to formulate a plan that would give the most people access to affordable healthcare in each of these

The Affordable Care Act promotes Medicaid expansion. Medicaid expansion is needed in North Carolina to insure the disabled and those that live below the poverty level receive adequate healthcare coverage. The resistance of North Carolina legislature in the promotion of Medicaid reform has retarded Medicaid expansion to its uninsured residents. The cooperation of the North Carolina legislature and its support of the Affordable Care Act is necessary for successful Medicaid reform. This paper reviews the impact of the Affordable Care Act 's lack of implementation in North Carolina.

When it validated the constitutionality of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2012, the United States Supreme Court also ruled that states could decide for themselves whether or not to expand their Medicaid programs (Sonfield, 2012). Predictably, South Carolina said no. The Palmetto State’s decision not to expand Medicaid in concert with the Affordable Care Act was wrong, and it is time to correct that mistake.

Looking at the different readings which analyzed and discussed the different ways that states are handling the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, it seems that each state has their own unique prospective on the expansion, dependent on the political leanings and wealth of the state. For example, one of the article describes Kentucky opting to traditional Medicaid, while Arkansas opted to buy coverage for the poor through the federal marketplace. The states that have limited the expansion of Medicaid seems to be typically Republican states, which obviously has an issue with not only the costs associated with the expansion but also the ideological issues that seems to be in conflict with

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) highlighted the importance Medicaid played in insuring every American receive healthcare coverage. (42 U.S.C., 2010) Medicaid provides health benefits to over 71 million across the country. While involvement is optional, all 50 states participate in the program and requirements differ across the nation. The flexibility given to each state has allowed them to make their own decisions to work towards improvements that they believe would best benefit their region (Feldstein, 2015, p. 125-126).

In the article, This Is What Happens When Your State Blocks The Medicaid Expansion Jonathan Cohn discusses the impact that the Affordable Care Act has had on the percentage of people that have health insurance in the United States. Cohn goes in depth about what the Affordable Care Act is and why it has been so beneficial to the states that have adopted it, most specifically the expansion of Medicaid. Cohn also addresses the loophole that allows states to opt out of the federal program due to a Supreme Court ruling in 2012 that allows states to block the Medicaid expansion. The new Medicaid expansion has helped lots of Americans get access to health insurance that they would not have had access to otherwise, but some states are not taking

Policy analysis of mental health care under the ACA as well as description of how mental health care/service are organized under the ACA from federal to local levels.

The United States has never had an official federal-centered approach for mental health care facilities, entrusting its responsibility to the states throughout the history. The earliest initiatives in this field took place in the 18th century, when Virginia built its first asylum and Pennsylvania Hospital reserved its basement to house individuals with mental disorders (Sundararaman, 2009). During the 19th century, other services were built, but their overall lack of quality was alarming. Even then, researchers and professionals in the mental health field attempted to implement the principles of the so-called public health, focusing on prevention and early intervention, but the funds were in the hands of the local governments, which prevented significant advances in this direction.

The Florida Senate partnered with the Obama Administration to force the expansion of Medicaid. The Senate suggests that the Low-Income Pool (LIP) should be exited due to safety-net funding. LIP is a federal program that has ties to hospitals and other providers and provides 1.3 billion dollars while also matching additional local dollars. In 2006, LIP was approved to replace a previous program that had been set in stone for decades. The federal government believes that Florida LIP needs to stop, but has no sense of idea on what a new program should look like. Several months later, the state was told that LIP funding is heavily linked to the expansion of Medicaid. Since Florida chose not to expand, it doesn’t get LIP

In today’s society there is a greater awareness of mental illnesses. With this greater awareness one might assume that there would be a substantial increase in government involvement or funding in the area of mental illness treatment. Unfortunately this isn’t the case in the U.S. today. There are hundreds of thousands of people with mental illness that go untreated. These potential patients go untreated for many reasons. These reasons are discussed in the Time article “Mental Health Reform: What Would it Really Take.

With the Affordable Care Act back in the news, the debate over government-sponsored health insurance programs continues. Supporters of the A.C.A. have argued in favor of expanding the insurance program Medicaid to cover adults who earn up to 138 percent of the poverty level—but so far twenty-one states have decided against such an expansion. For the most part, governors of those states have given the same explanation: they simply cannot afford to pay for their share of the program.

An Urban Institute analysis found that if all states expanded Medicaid to individuals at or below 138% FPL, more than 15 million adults will be eligible to enroll (Kenney, Dubay, Zuckerman and Huntress, 2012). If a state failed to implement the expansion, it faced the possible loss of all federal Medicaid funding, making it an offer the states could not refuse. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress could not intimidate states into expanding Medicaid. As a result, the ACA Medicaid eligibility expansion is now optional for each state. States still await official guidance from CMS, including revised ACA regulations to match the court’s ruling. It is also likely that states may opt into or may subsequently opt out of Medicaid eligibility expansion at any time in the future. Although the Supreme Court upheld the ACA as constitutional, it determined that the Medicaid expansion would be a state option rather than mandatory (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2012). At the same time, 4.3 million adults in the United States are currently eligible for Medicaid but not enrolled (Kenney et al., 2012). Because of state expansion discrepancies and past experiences with enrollment among eligible populations, the Congressional Budget Office has projected that only eight million will enroll in the first year (2014) and only 11 million two years after implementation (Congressional Budget Office, 2013).