Conclusion
It has been a challenging time for children’s health coverage. Pennsylvania is moving in the wrong direction ensuring children have coverage to meet their health care needs. The latest data shows more kids are going without health insurance even before the flexibilities from the COVID-19 public health emergency ended. Additionally, Pennsylvania is in the midst of huge operational changes in Medicaid and CHIP that are in many cases negatively impacting children’s connection to coverage. During a time of rising prices, low-income families are especially struggling to make ends meet for basic necessities like food and housing. Adding to this hardship is that children living in families with lower incomes are likely not to have health insurance.
We must do all we can to reach families about their health insurance options through Medicaid, CHIP, and Pennie™. We must also ensure that children can easily keep their coverage once enrolled by implementing proven strategies like continuous eligibility and automatic “ex parte” renewals. Multi-year continuous eligibility for children is critically important to meet their developmental needs and become healthy adults; further, DHS can ensure children are more connected to their health insurance by immediately restoring Medicaid coverage for those who lost it during the automated “ex parte” renewals error.
18
November 2023
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