The 45-year-old Gladstone resident gets her health insurance through the Oregon Health Plan. She hadn’t connected the federal Medicaid changes to OHP or realized that people like her could soon have to work, enroll in school or volunteer to keep their coverage.
That seems amazingly dumb. How hard is it to realize that Oregon’s version of Medicaid is called the Oregon Health Plan. That understanding can be accomplished in one sentence, like the previous.
Hughes said she generally relies on the state to tell her when she needs to act. But she says OHP eligibility rules aren’t always easy to decipher. When she was due for a renewal in June, Hughes said she spent hours on the phone and submitting documents to reverse a coverage denial after the state incorrectly counted her income.
She’s allowed a lot more forbearance here. Oregon state government has been notoriously incompetent under Democratic leadership, and the Oregon Health Authority is particularly egregious in this respect.
More than 1.4 million Oregonians are enrolled in the Oregon Health Plan, the state’s Medicaid program for people with low incomes or certain disabilities.
This is an insane statistic since Oregon’s population is only 4.27 million. That means almost 33% of the state is enrolled in the Oregon Health Plan.
Starting next year, the state estimates up to 600,000 could face new federal requirements to work, attend school or volunteer for at least 80 hours a month to keep their health coverage, part of a Trump administration-backed overhaul approved by Congress.
How is this not already a requirement for able-bodied people?
Vincent Seadler, 35, knows they’re on OHP but still gets tangled in its alphabet soup. Asked which health plan they had, the Portland resident first named Health Share of Oregon, a CCO, but said they weren’t sure if that was their health plan.
Seadler, who apparently goes by “they/them” pronouns, is confused on multiple levels.
Dr. Daniel Nelson, an Oregon Health & Science University primary care physician and researcher, sees similar confusion among his patients. Some know they have the Oregon Health Plan but don’t realize it’s Medicaid.
“Medicaid’s structure is confusing even for people who are experts,” Nelson said. “It becomes extraordinarily challenging for people to understand exactly what coverage they’ve got.”
In a study published earlier this year, he and fellow researchers found that about 1 in 9 Medicaid enrollees surveyed during the pandemic said they didn’t have Medicaid even though they did. Some thought they were uninsured; others reported having different insurance.
The structure of Medicaid may be confusing. That’s not the same as knowing whether you are enrolled in it or not. And the survey contravenes what we’re being told: 1 in 9 people being confused by this is only 11%. That means 89% of people know whether they’re in Medicaid or not.
Even figuring out who has to comply [with the new Medicaid rules] can be complicated. People who are pregnant, have disabilities or are considered medically frail, among others, are exempt. State officials say they’re still working out how to verify those exemptions. They said some will be flagged automatically, while others will have to provide proof.
“People” who are pregnant means “women” for anyone scoring this at home. But nothing else in this paragraph is raising red flags. People should have to prove eligibility to receive taxpayer-funded benefits.
The rules will also reach Healthier Oregon, the state-funded program that covers people regardless of immigration status. The state estimates about 57,600 Healthier Oregon members could be subject to them.
Healthier Oregon is a program that costs about $600 million a year and funds free healthcare predominantly for illegal immigrants. It’s example number one of how the Democrats take taxpayer money and spend it on pet causes.
Oregon has estimated that the work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks could eventually cause up to 200,000 people to lose Medicaid coverage.
One can only hope the program serves those who deserve it and removes those who are gaming the system at taxpayer expense.