LTE: Cumbersome requirements would hurt Montana families
The 2015 Medicaid expansion will expire in a few months, kicking about 96,000 people off their health care. Even though there is general agreement in Helena that it should be continued, some legislators are now trying to stop its renewal by putting up roadblocks in the form of more cumbersome eligibility requirements – in the form of means testing, employment requirements, and mandatory drug testing.
There is, first of all, no evidence that any of these objections has ever been a problem; but more importantly, what they’re requesting would be cost prohibitive and futile. We know that more than two-thirds of Medicaid recipients work, and about eight in 10 live in a home where someone works. We also know that drug testing applicants is costly (about $50 per test) and non-conclusive. States who have tried it found that only a meager number of applicants show positive, and then they’re faced with the moral dilemma of denying someone health care simply because they may have used an illicit drug. And means testing is an administrative nightmare that could harm many Montana families who own farm and ranch land that might appear as assets enough to deny them coverage.
Walt Long