HCFA’s indefatigable law firm — Health Law Advocates — has submitted recommendations to MassHealth to ensure minimal disrupture of eligibility due to the new federal requirements for citizenship documentation. This summary was provided by HLA’s Sara Pic Harrison:
A new federal law now requires U.S. citizens applying for Medicaid, either as a new applicant or as part of eligibility redetermination, to prove citizenship and identity through rigid documentation requirements. These requirements are burdensome and sometimes prohibitive for many Medicaid applicants otherwise eligible. For example, African-American citizens born in the South during the era of Jim Crow laws usually did not have access to hospitals that provide certificates of birth. Many homeless people do not have driver’s licenses or ID cards. Even the cost of birth certificates can be too much for some families, often $25 or more. For a lower income families with several children, obtaining birth certificates for each child is expensive.
Some states have responded by amending their own laws to make this requirement less burdensome. In Massachusetts, MassHealth will pay for the cost of birth certificates for applicants who were born in Massachusetts, and has extended the time it allows applicants to gather required documents before denial or termination. While we commend the Commonwealth for these, more needs to be done to ensure that eligible citizens are not denied or terminated from MassHealth due to problems obtaining citizenship and identity requirements. HLA, HCFA’s legal arm, submitted comments to MassHealth recommending:
· Requiring MassHealth staff to help applicants and members who experience difficulty obtaining required documents when the applicant or member requests assistance.
· Requiring MassHealth staff to affirmatively offer help to all applicants or members with special needs such as disabilities or homelessness.
· Offering payment assistance to MassHealth members and applicants unable to afford the cost of out-of-state birth certificates.
· Allowing MassHealth applicants or members who are trying in good faith to obtain the required documents to be eligible for free care.
· Tracking how many otherwise eligible MassHealth members or applicants are terminated or denied benefits only because of inability to obtain required documents.
We hope MassHealth will listen to the needs of the low-income people it serves and do everything it can to reduce the burden of the new federal requirements.
Sara Pic Harrison
