Help Keep Medicaid Affordable For People with Disabilities
July, 2005

Take Action!

Please Tell Us Your Medicaid Story.

BACKGROUND:
Congress is seriously considering recommendations from the National Governors Association to increase cost-sharing - increases in out-of-pocket expenses - for non-institutionalized Medicaid beneficiaries. This is an effort that could cause serious harm to people with disabilities receiving benefits because cost-sharing can potentially result in increased premiums, deductibles and co-pays for all health care services (out-patient visits, prescription drugs, physical, speech and occupational therapies, mobility devices and other durable medical equipment), including home and community based waiver services.

Our nation's Governors argue that beneficiaries should be encouraged to take "personal responsibility" for their health care and that increasing co-payments will not dramatically impact beneficiaries. However, many Medicaid beneficiaries with disabilities with chronic health conditions requiring many medications, therapies and other health care services, are barely surviving on minimal SSI benefits and cannot afford even a minimal increase. Extensive research documents how cost-sharing increases as low as $1.00 per prescription prevent many Medicaid beneficiaries from accessing much needed services.

Click Here to Share Your Story -- Complete the Easy to Use Form

We need stories about how Medicaid beneficiaries with disabilities are already spending a significant portion of out-of-pocket expenses - not reimbursed by Medicaid - on health and other disability related services. This is the topic of a recent study which shows that out-of-pocket expenses for SSI recipients is about eight times more than the average of what middle-class privately insured adults spend.

Time is of the essence. Help us put a human face on this statistic.

The Disability Policy Collaboration
Attn: Richard Price
1660 L Street, NW, Suite 701
Washington, DC 20009
Fax: 202-783-8250

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