IN’s Medicaid Model Could Spread—But It’s Not Working For Everyone

Expanding Medicaid to cover more low-income Americans was a major component of the Affordable Care Act. Verma added a conservative twist: a requirement to pay into the system. Legal and health care advocates say that requirement is causing problems.

News Story (Indiana)

Jake Harper
Indiana Public Media
January 11, 2017
READ THE FULL STORY HERE

Tags: Health Care, Medicaid

Organizations mentioned/involved: Indiana Legal Services (ILS)

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Wilson signed up for HIP 2.0 in 2015 and paid his bills each month. But he says one time when he went to the doctor, they told him he was not covered. When he called his insurance company, Anthem, he says they told him he missed a payment.

“My wife’s like, ‘Excuse me?’” he says. “Well, she keeps the receipts.”

Even with evidence of his POWER account payments, Wilson says this kept happening. Bills that should have been covered went unpaid, and he and his wife were frustrated, he says: “She finally told them straight out, ‘Are you trying to kill my husband? Is this what you’re doing?’”

Eventually, they got help from Katherine Wood, an attorney at Indiana Legal Services who handles a lot of HIP 2.0 cases. Wood tried to get the HIP system to recognize his coverage.