An estimated 130,000 Montanans, including 36,000 children, have lost their Medicaid or Healthy Montana Kids health insurance coverage as of April 2023. It’s part of a national spike in enrollment declines, a “rollout” that KFF Health News called the “most the major upheaval in the 58-year history of the state’s health insurance program for low-income and disabled people.”
After pandemic-era federal protections against enrollment loss ended last year, each US state reviewed people’s eligibility for Medicaid and “redetermined” whether or not they were eligible. More than 28 million people were screened, and 10 million people in the country lost coverage. A large number of them lost it due to incomplete documents, not because they did not meet the conditions.
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On Thursday morning in Missoula, a group of people who work at various nonprofits across the state came together to discuss efforts to get people back into coverage. It was part of the Montana Primary Care Association’s effort to get people back on health insurance. The new campaign is called “Cover Montana.” The goal is to keep people who drop out of coverage without health insurance.
The executive directors of the Missoula Food Bank and Community Center, the Poverello Center and the Missoula YWCA spoke about how people with extremely limited means, including people with mental illness, vulnerable community members and families fleeing violence, have been negatively affected by the loss of health care. insurance. In Missoula alone, 3,000 children have lost coverage, according to Partnership Health Center Executive Director Lara Salazar.
“So imagine a second-grader in Montana, struggling with flu-like symptoms and severe respiratory problems, forced to leave school because of his condition,” Salazar said. “This child’s educational path is hindered because he cannot concentrate. They may experience discomfort or pain and their health is at risk. Medicaid coverage allows them to get the medical care they urgently need by finding an underlying condition of chronic asthma exacerbated by the flu.”
Health insurance will allow a child to get the proper treatment they need to return to school despite the financial challenges their parents face, Salazar said. This means parents miss fewer days of work because children miss fewer days of school.
“(It’s) a testament to the transformative power of affordable health care,” she said. “We also know that when co-occurring barriers like housing, food insecurity, transportation and all of those things are addressed, overall community health and well-being is entirely possible.” Families like this can participate in their community, have fun and not just survive.”
Salazar closed his presentation by saying that “Medicaid coverage is at the core” of the shared goal of community well-being.
Olivia Riuta, director of population health for the Montana Primary Care Association, said many people were excluded because they simply didn’t fill out the necessary paperwork or didn’t do it correctly. Some panelists Thursday noted that members of the homeless community often have no place to get mail or don’t check their mail at homeless shelters. Some simply do not have the funds to fill out the complicated paperwork.
“What we do know, and this is data from the Montana Department of Health and Human Services, which they update monthly, is that the vast majority, over 64 percent, of people who have lost Medicaid coverage have lost it for procedural reasons.” , she said. “It just means they didn’t return some documentation that was requested.”
She said her organization’s goal is to get people to either re-enroll in Medicaid or enroll in another type of health insurance through the so-called “marketplace,” which is the government’s health insurance website at healthcare.gov.
Amy Allison Thompson, executive director of the Missoula Food Bank and Community Center, said her organization’s research shows that health insurance costs and medical expenses are the second leading cause of food insecurity for people in Missoula County.
“About 30 percent of people say medical expenses are the reason they feel food insecure,” she said. The food bank served 25,000 people last year, which is one in five people in the county.
Barbara Frank of Missoula County Public Schools said counselors, nurses and social workers in the area have noticed that more and more families are choosing not to get the health care their children need because they can’t afford it or don’t have it. Health insurance.
“At the same time, we’re seeing a huge increase in behavioral health needs and mental health care needs for both the students we serve and their families,” she said. “And we’ve also seen a significant increase in chronic absenteeism.”
She said chronic illnesses affect the student’s ability to attend classes.
“We’re really seeing chronic truancy increase among our high school population as well, especially for our unaccompanied homeless youth whose families have already lost care and they don’t have adults to handle it for them, and they’re in our community on their own,” she said. “And they really struggle and struggle to access a lot of the resources that this community provides.”
The Montana Primary Care Association urges people to go online to mtpca.org/getcoveredagain to re-enroll. They can also contact Rachel Pauli at [email protected] or call 406-438-3410.
David Erickson is the Missoulian’s business reporter.
