AEGiS-ATN: California: Medicaid Expansion Needs Quick Attention after the Election

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

California: Medicaid Expansion Needs Quick Attention after the Election

AIDS TREATMENT NEWS Issue #306, November 6, 1998
John S. James

Medicaid, the government program for medical care for persons with low income, is today the largest provider of healthcare for persons with AIDS. But to be eligible for Medicaid, a patient needs not only a low income, but also an official diagnosis of "disability"; therefore persons with HIV who need medical care cannot get Medicaid, no matter how low their income, until they first get sick enough to qualify. It would certainly be better for them, and it may also cost less money, to start treatment earlier, before their illness has progressed enough that they are officially disabled.

Vice President Al Gore took the lead in considering Medicaid expansion nationwide for persons with HIV. It did not happen, however, because it could not be proved to cost no more than the present system. Meanwhile, individual states can implement this policy in their own Medicaid systems.

In California, a serious Medicaid-expansion effort was underway in the office of outgoing Republican Governor Pete Wilson, at the initiative of several AIDS organizations. The new Democratic governor, Gray Davis, is expected to be sympathetic. But it is important that the new administration hear from the AIDS community early, that this issue is important to us. A successful program in California would be very helpful in gaining similar access to care in other states, or in the U.S. as a whole.

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