Tomorrow’s House budget vote threatens children’s health
First Focus Campaign for Children and fellow advocates pushed lawmakers today to reject a House budget proposal that would endanger the immediate and long-term health of the nation’s children with sweeping cuts to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
First Focus Campaign for Children worked in partnership with the American Association of Pediatrics, the Children’s Hospital Association, March of Dimes and three other organizations in a letter urging lawmakers to vote “no” on the House budget resolution, which proposes nearly $900 billion in cuts to Medicaid and CHIP. The vote is scheduled for tomorrow.
“The impact of Medicaid and CHIP extends beyond immediate health care needs, as research shows that children covered by Medicaid and CHIP have better health outcomes as adults, higher school attendance, and greater academic achievement,” the group wrote in the letter, sent today to every member of the U.S. House of Representatives. “Furthermore, enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP during childhood is associated with lower high school dropout rates, increased college attendance, and higher future wages.”
Together, Medicaid and CHIP cover more than 37 million children in the United States and more than 40% of all births.
In a separate analysis, First Focus Campaign for Children President Bruce Lesley offers a granular assessment of the consequences of replacing Medicaid’s federal-state matching partnership with a per capita cap system. “Making America Sick Again: How Medicaid Caps Will Leave Children Underinsured and Unhealthy” explains how per capita caps would force states to ration care, slash benefits, reduce provider payments, and make impossible choices about which children, senior citizens, people with disabilities, and low-income adults get health care and which do not.
Medicaid provides health coverage for 41% of babies, or 1.5 million births across the country each year. “Making America Sick Again” notes that states in which 45% or more births are covered by Medicaid, include Texas, Alabama, Arizona, D.C., Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Many of these are “red” states.
Work requirements pose an additional threat to children who receive Medicaid and other benefit programs. In a new analysis, First Focus on Children notes that past implementation of work requirements has demonstrated that confusing rules, complex reporting systems, and other bureaucratic red tape cause children to lose their health coverage. For example, in Arkansas, 18,000 Medicaid enrollees lost their coverage within the first seven months of the state implementing work requirements before a court order halted the program.Evidence shows thatwhen parents lose benefits, children do too — a situation that the United States cannot afford in the wake of major coverage losses to children over the last two years as COVID-19-era continuous coverage protections ended.