Why is Medicaid nonetheless treating COVID-19 as a public well being emergency?

The federal public well being emergency for the COVID-19 pandemic got here to an finish Thursday, greater than three years after it was first enacted in 2020. That comes on the heels of the World Well being Group's declaration on Might 5 that COVID-19 was now not a world well being emergency.

And on the identical day, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention introduced it will cease monitoring new circumstances. In different phrases, the pandemic is basically behind us. But Medicaid continues to be masking over-the-counter COVID-19 checks for beneficiaries freed from cost. That makes little sense. No different payor is underneath the identical obligation. Provisions requiring Medicare and personal insurers to cowl as much as eight at-home checks monthly free of charge expired together with the general public well being emergency.

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However underneath the American Rescue Plan Act, which was handed in 2021, state Medicaid plans should proceed providing at-home checks to enrollees freed from cost. The requirement will not sundown till the top of September 2024 — roughly a 12 months and a half after the top of the general public well being emergency. Why are taxpayers masking the price of checks for a virus that now not constitutes a public well being disaster? It is not low cost. Medicaid and the Youngsters's Well being Insurance coverage Program cowl 93 million individuals. Even assuming only one check per particular person over the following 16 months, the extra price would run into the a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

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However what's a brand new nine-figure price when Medicaid already accounts for $734 billion in annual spending annually? Even the general public well being institution has declared that it is time to transfer on from COVID-19. Medicaid ought to observe swimsuit.

Sally C. Pipes is president, CEO, and Thomas W. Smith fellow in Well being Care Coverage on the Pacific Analysis Institute. Her newest ebook is False Premise, False Promise: The Disastrous Actuality of Medicare for All (Encounter 2020). Observe her on Twitter @sallypipes.