Every state has a Medicaid program. Each state can choose to name their program whatever they want to. Some just call it “Medicaid”. Others use the word “Healthy” in the name. California calls it Medi-Cal. Arizona’s Medicaid program is called the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System.
I’ve been writing about insurance for a couple of years now. In that span of time, Arizona has consistently come up with some of the most extreme ideas about health insurance coverage that the nation has ever seen.
This is the state that created a bill called House Bill 2625 which would have required women to prove to their employer that they were using birth control for medical conditions, and not for prevention of pregnancy, in order to have their health insurance cover it. This bill did not get made into law.
In May of 2012, Governor Jan Brewer signed a law that allowed religious employers to opt-out of covering birth control in the health plans it offers to employees. Recently, Governor Jan Brewer has asked the Supreme Court to terminate health care benefits for state employees’ same-sex partners. So, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that the name of the Medicaid program in Arizona includes the words “cost containment”.
Medicaid is a public, or government run, form of health insurance. It is designed to provide health insurance coverage for individuals or families who are low-income, and who cannot afford to purchase a private health insurance plan. Medicaid is funded, in part, by the federal government, and in part by the state government.
The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System website does not make it easy to discover the eligibility requirements of Arizona’s Medicaid program. There is mention of eligibility being calculated “in relation to a percentage of the Federal Poverty Level”. The exact percentage is not listed.
The website does state that the Affordable Care Act does allow states to expand their Medicaid eligibility. However, this appears to only be mentioned in order to point out that the state of Arizona will not be expanding their Medicaid program. The state has also decided that adults who are younger than the age of 65, who are not disabled, and who do not have dependent children, cannot be eligible for Medicaid.
There are some non-financial eligibility requirements. “In order to be eligible for Medicaid, individuals need to satisfy federal and state requirements regarding residency, immigration status, and documentation of United States citizenship”.
It appears that the state of Arizona is doing “cost containment” with their Medicaid program. They have more restrictions about who can be eligible for it than several other states do, and they make it incredibly difficult to find out what the eligibility requirements are.
Image by Meta Mourphic on Flickr