5116.0: Wednesday, November 19, 2003: 12:30 PM-2:00 PM | |||
Oral | |||
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| Since Medicaid was established as Title XIX of the Social Security Act in 1965, it has become critical to financing health care for low-income women, children, and families. This central role in financing care has given Medicaid an important role in shaping care for MCH populations. Facilities such as neonatal intensive care units and children’s hospitals depend on Medicaid as a major source of capital. Particular service delivery modes, such as interdisciplinary care for children with special health care needs, thrive or fail based on state Medicaid policies. With the spread of managed care in the 1990s, state Medicaid administrators have taken on a more direct role in planning, implementation and evaluation of services, and in ongoing quality assurance and improvement. This session will address impact of proposals to cut or change Medicaid on women, children and families. One speaker will examine the federal proposals to create a Medicaid block grant. A second will look at state strategies to reduce Medicaid budgets, addressing both categorical changes in benefits and eligibility and operational changes (eg: in application, intake or eligibility redetermination procedures, or in staffing, hours of service, documentation requirements, or outreach) that affect service delivery. Two speakers will examine impact of cuts on low-income families and families of children with special health care needs in the context of cutbacks in multiple service programs and other economic hardships that are hitting families simultaneously. Speakers will identify advocacy strategies, including strategies which focus on: documentation of outcomes, education of the public, the media or policy makers, mobilization of constituencies, or legal or legislative challenges to specific program cuts. | |||
| Learning Objectives: · To inform the MCH and the broader public health community about the critical importance of Medicaid as a source of health care funding for individuals and families within the MCH population; · To inform the MCH and the broader public health community about the critical importance of Medicaid as a source of funding for systems that serve the MCH population; · To clarify the nature of current or proposed cuts at state and federal levels, including the fundamental shift from Medicaid as a counter cyclical safety net program to Medicaid as a source of funding to assist states in providing some coverage to some individuals; · To trace the impact of cuts on particular segments of the MCH population within the context of broader program cuts and of declining economic circumstances of families; · To identify advocacy efforts in progress and to explore advocacy strategies available to participants at federal and state levels. | |||
| See individual abstracts for presenting author's disclosure statement and author's information. | |||
| Joanne Fischer, MSS Deborah Allen, ScD | |||
| Debbie Klein Walker, EdD | |||
| Welcoming Remarks | |||
| Medicaid Changes: The National View Rachel Klein | |||
| State Policy Responses to the Economic Downturn and Their Impacts on Children Ian Hill | |||
| How Will Changes Affect Women, Children and Families Dana C. Hughes, DrPH | |||
| Impact on Children with Special Health Care Needs and their Families Deborah Allen, ScD | |||
| Discussion | |||
| Organized by: | Maternal and Child Health | ||
| Endorsed by: | Asian Pacific Islander Caucus of APHA; Health Equity and Public Hospitals Caucus; School Health Education and Services; Social Work; Socialist Caucus; Women's Caucus | ||
| CE Credits: | CME, Nursing, Pharmacy | ||