In Texas, health advocates often find themselves playing defense to encourage leaders to preserve the state’s relatively frugal public service offerings while also pushing for more.
That’s why a $300 million ask to lawmakers next year from the state’s notoriously tight-lipped social services agency — the Texas Health and Human Services Commission — to improve the agency’s complicated Medicaid application process has thrilled the state’s nonprofit policy groups.
The agency-initiated request is a response to the incredible backlog of applications for Medicaid and food stamps after the federal unwinding of a pandemic-era policy that suspended the need for periodic renewal of benefits. Hundreds of thousands of Texans lost their Medicaid coverage because they didn’t get their renewal applications filed quick enough or they were procedurally removed from the program because of paperwork issues.
Each year, there are as many as 50,000 maintenance service requests for the enrollment system filed by staff members. The slow process is by design, said Anne Dunkelberg, who retired as health policy director for progressive policy group Every Texan earlier this year.The system forces caretakers to block out hours if not days to push an application into the system after gathering the required documents.
Segura often hears from clients who have to resubmit documents multiple times because the state has said it hasn’t received them.
Government Programs Children Government Policy General News TX State Wire Business Texas State Government Bernadette Segura Labor Health Anne Dunkelberg Peter Clark U.S. News Politics Diana Forester Jennifer Ruffcorn U.S. News
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