Nashville Tennessean
MUNFORD She opened her refrigerator and saw only a gallon of milk and two old lunch bags from a free-food giveaway.
That s when she knew her family was in big trouble. It s pretty shocking, said single mom Kim Biers. What am I going to tell everybody when they come in the kitchen for lunch?
Last April, Biers, who has two school-age sons living with her, didn t know she was eligible for a program to give parents like her pandemic debit cards to buy food for their children.
Without school meals to count on since her children s classes were on-line because of COVID-19, Biers was forced to scramble.
February 18, 2021
Tennessee is likely to reject hundreds of millions of dollars President Joe Biden is offering states to expand Medicaid as part of his $1.3 trillion COVID-19 relief package, even though hundreds of thousands of people remain without healthcare coverage.
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Democrats have been urging the state s top Republican leaders for years to accept the federal government s funds to increase TennCare coverage to 300,000-plus uninsured and underinsured residents caught in a gap between the state s Medicaid plan and the Affordable Care Act. Some estimates put the figure at 600,000.
Tennessee, one of 12 states holding out on Medicaid expansion since the Affordable Care Act passed, could receive $1.7 billion to provide insurance for the working poor and more money to cover the people already on TennCare, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning organization.
Trump Administration Approves First Medicaid Block Grant
by Phil Galewitz, Kaiser Health News | January 12, 2021
With just a dozen days left in power, the Trump administration last Friday approved a radically different Medicaid financing system in Tennessee that for the first time would give the state broader authority in running the health insurance program for the poor in exchange for capping its annual federal funding.
The approval is a 10-year “experiment.” Instead of the open-ended federal funding that rises with higher enrollment and health costs, Tennessee will instead get an annual block grant. The approach has been pushed for decades by conservatives who say states too often chafe under strict federal guidelines about enrollment and coverage and can find ways to provide care more efficiently.
With just a dozen days left in power, the Trump administration on Friday approved a radically different Medicaid financing system in Tennessee that for the first time would give the state broad authority in running the health insurance program for the poor in exchange for capping its annual federal funding.
The plan, long endorsed by conservatives, would give the state broad flexibility in running its health insurance program for the poor, while capping annual federal funding for the program.