Medicaid provides a wide variety of coverage to persons with disabilities, low-income earning adults, pregnant women and aging persons. In the state of Maryland, to qualify for Medicaid, one must first be a resident of Maryland, a United States Citizen who currently meets the immigration requirements and be able to provide a social security number. In addition, there are certain financial requirements that are looked at for each of these individuals with respect to their income status in accordance with the Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) test (Watts, Cornachione, & Musumeci, 2016).
For aged, disabled and blind persons, the State of Maryland has provided eligibility requirements under the Non-MAGI category. They must qualify for, and be receiving Federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or matched to a Federal Assistance program (Chapelle, 2010). Depending on how the federal government identifies them, they can qualify for different medical coverages under Medicaid. They are defined under the S-Track Category. For pregnant women, their eligibility criteria are placed under P-Track.
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Each of these categories look at the number of persons in the family and the household income. Pregnant Women are considered to be MAGI adults and hence must pass through the MAGI test. In it, the coverage percentage is determined depending on the number of persons within the family group, the lowest being 2. The eligibility criteria is determined depending on the Income within the household of the pregnant woman (Chapelle, 2010).
The eligibility requirements for persons who are elderly can be said to be restrictive as they link eligibility of elderly persons with their current SSI beneficiary status. Where they do not meet some of the conditions presented, then they are considered ineligible. In addition, the link and limit to acquiring a person’s Security Number in order to grant Medicaid coverage also proves restrictive for persons in all these categories. In addition, there are many other factors which ultimately determine as to whether a person is eligible for Medicaid, factors which are not linked to a person’s current conditions, rather are stipulated by the states in addition to the federal limits. These requirements can be said to be more liberal than they are reasonable (Watts, Cornachione, & Musumeci, 2016).
It is beneficial to ensure that a population is able to afford healthy and quality medical services through insurance packages governmentally provided. It is advantageous for the government to ensure fairness in the provision of such services as it gathers more confidence in the people with respect to their government. However, a state where many people are not covered by a health insurance policy leads to the rise in the mortality rate within the country. Medicaid, is such a program which can ultimately improve the Nation’s current standing on Health Policy Provision (Bruen, Wiener, & Thomas, 2003).
References
Bruen, B. K., Wiener, J. M., & Thomas, S. (2003). Medicaid Eligibility Policy for Aged, Blind and Disabled Beneficiaries. The Urban Institute . Retrieved from chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/https://assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/health/2003_14_abd.pdf
Chapelle, S. E. G. (2010). Maryland Government . United States of America: Gibbs Smith.
Watts, M. O., Cornachione, E., & Musumeci, M. (2016, March 1). Medicaid Financial Eligibility for Seniors and People with Disabilities in 2015 - Report . Retrieved August 24, 2017, from http://www.kff.org/report-section/medicaid-financial-eligibility-for-seniors-and-people-with-disabilities-in-2015-report/
