Children who qualify for Medicaid can't be included on subsidized family plans purchased through the federal marketplace
Parents must have significantly lower incomes to gain Medicaid coverage for themselves than they would to get coverage for just their children
Until the problem is figured out, thousands of children don't have coverageSome parents shopping for health insurance through the new federal marketplace are running into trouble when their children might be eligible for Medicaid but they are not.
Children who qualify for Medicaid, the safety-net program for the poor and disabled, can't be included on subsidized family plans purchased through the federal marketplace, a fact that is taking many parents by surprise and causing confusion and problems for others.
A California man says he was given false assurances that his children could be covered by the same plan he picked for his wife and himself, and a Florida father says his daughter is going without coverage while he waits for answers. In New Hampshire, some parents who've enrolled in private plans for themselves are finding out later that their children aren't eligible for Medicaid after all, leaving the kids with no options.
'The children are getting stuck in this spot where we've enrolled the parent, but we can't bring the children back on the family plan,' Maria Proulx, senior legal counsel for Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Hampshire, told a state advisory board panel this month.
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services declined to say how the system is supposed to work for families and what problems have emerged. But a regional manager for CMS acknowledged the problem at the same New Hampshire meeting and said the agency is working on it, as did Proulx in a later interview.
'This is an important issue, and we're not taking it lightly,' she said. 'Even if this impacts only one family ... it's a big deal and we want to get it resolved as quickly as possible'
The federal government sets minimum guidelines for Medicaid eligibility, but states can choose to expand coverage beyond that. In some states, parents must have significantly lower incomes to gain Medicaid coverage for themselves than they would to get coverage for just their children, either through Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program - also known as CHIP - the low-income health insurance program for children who don't qualify for Medicaid.
In North Port, Fla., Russell Clouden was thrilled to find a better, cheaper family plan through the new marketplace, then stunned to realize his 14-year-old daughter wouldn't be enrolled because she might qualify for Florida Healthy Kids, the state's version of CHIP. The federal government still hasn't transferred roughly 90,000 Medicaid files over to Florida officials, including Clouden's daughter's, so she still doesn't have insurance.
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