Panel:
Relationships between Safety Net Programs: Medicaid, Free Care, SNAP and EITC
(Health Policy)
Friday, November 9, 2018: 3:15 PM-4:45 PM
Wilson A - Mezz Level (Marriott Wardman Park)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
Panel Chairs: Sherry Glied, New York University
Discussants: Thomas Selden, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and Naomi Zewde, Columbia University
The United States has a complex, inter-related, incomplete and mostly means-tested safety net system to protect the wellbeing of our poor and near poor, especially for health care. While the Affordable Care Act (ACA) expanded health care benefits substantially, many are still without health insurance benefits or direct subsidies, including the undocumented, those below 100% of the Federal Poverty Line in non-expansion states who don’t categorically qualify for Medicaid, family glitch “victims.” With the ACA, the long-standing, extensive, but highly uneven and complex system of free care for the uninsured has changed. Federally Qualified Health Centers provide free care and Medicaid-funded care. New York state has revised but still implements its Indigent Care Pool. New information channels and income qualification rules for Medicaid and subsidies could, directly and indirectly affect eligibility and take-up of the Earned Income Tax Credit (ETIC), food assistance (SNAP) and other non-health programs.
How do all these programs interact? How have they been affected by the ACA? Did the ACA Medicaid Expansion change use of SNAP and EITC? In a state with extensive free health care (New York), how much does free care reduce poverty in the post-ACA world? How does that impact compare to Medicaid? How do Federally Qualified Health Centers affect Medicaid beneficiaries and Medicaid costs?
