The Biden administration approved new initiatives in Oregon and Massachusetts to boost coverage in Medicaid, including keeping children in the program until they are 6 years old.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced Wednesday approvals for demonstrations in the two states. The demonstrations aim to also introduce new evidence-based measures to improve nutritional assistance and help ensure continuity of coverage, administration officials said.
“We're proud to work alongside Oregon and Massachusetts to bridge health disparities and to ensure all people can access high-quality healthcare,” said CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure during a call with reporters Wednesday. “The groundbreaking demonstration initiatives in Oregon and Massachusetts support a whole-person approach to care in many ways.”
One of the key parts of the Oregon demonstration is to ensure children on Medicaid keep their coverage until 6 years of age without families needing to renew any coverage.
“This will minimize red tape for both families and the state and help to ensure access to care throughout this critical period of early childhood,” according to a CMS release on the demonstrations.
The state will also expand its coverage of health-related social needs to include food assistance and housing support, part of a larger effort to combat health equity gaps. Another area is to provide support for people facing health issues from extreme climate conditions.
“We need to address unmet health-related social needs, such as new authorities for evidence-based nutritional assistance and medically tailored meals and housing support and support such as air filters and air conditioners for Medicaid recipients who are experiencing extreme climate events that we are seeing more frequently on the West Coast,” said Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, on the call with reporters.
Massachusetts’ demonstration would provide 12 months of continuous coverage on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program after release from a correctional facility and “24 months of continuous eligibility for beneficiaries with a confirmed status of chronic homelessness, eliminating gaps in coverage for these vulnerable populations,” according to CMS.
The state will have new authority to offer benefits that target food insecurity and housing instability, including medically tailored food assistance and clinical nutrition education.
“Massachusetts will also be implementing an innovative Hospital Quality and Equity Initiative for private acute hospitals and the commonwealth’s only non-state-owned public hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance,” the release said. “The initiative is expected to reduce health inequities by improving outcomes in populations that are likely to face barriers to quality healthcare.”
The waiver also puts $120 million into primary care, “which has always been, from my point of view, underfunded in healthcare generally,” said Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican.
The new demonstrations are part of a larger effort by CMS to address health equity in the healthcare system. The agency has sought to improve data collection efforts to get new information on equity gaps and has sought to update several types of quality measures to evaluate providers on their ability to improve the problem.