There are many opinions about Medicaid expansion and my post is opinion free.

Employers across all sectors of the economy are likely to have Medicaid eligible employees/dependents in their population. Many do not know they are Medicaid eligible and some may be on the employer plan.

What does this mean?

Like anything, researching it may be the best first step. Simply finding out if this exists in an employer population may make sense.

Then what?

Some employees will be delighted to know they qualify, some may be upset. Some employers will take advantage of Medicaid expansion to reduce the rolls on the employer-sponsored plan while others may hate the idea and avoid it all together.

We respect all opinions but we also are developing a tool to determine eligibility and — if the employer would like — assist in the enrollment process. We will be launching it next month.

We want to help any employer that wants to know who in their population is eligible for Medicaid and then listen to find out if there is anything the employer would like to do about it.

What is Medicaid?

  • Medicaid is funded largely by the federal government but run by the states
  • Unlike Medicare, Medicaid eligibility is based on income.  The Affordable Care Act expanded medicaid to reach well beyond prior eligibility pools (it will now 133% of poverty level).
  • Medicaid operates as nearly 100% coverage for all medical expenses.
  • Medicaid networks are more restrictive than Medicare or commercial policy networks
Medicaid used to be accessible only to children and low (really low) income parents with dependent children. Single people did not qualify. Parents with eligible children did not qualify often. Eligibility now is much much wider.
In the next few weeks we will be rolling out a tool to assist any employer/employee evaluate Medicaid eligibility.