Garcia Wilburn responds to Medicaid disenrollment investigation
State Rep. Victoria Garcia Wilburn (D-Fishers) released the following statement in response to WRTV's investigation into children with disabilities kicked off their Medicaid program:
"As a healthcare provider, I know what these therapies mean for a child's development, and what it costs a family when they disappear without warning. The children in this story did not become ineligible overnight. Their paperwork sat unprocessed on a state task list until the system shut their coverage off automatically. There is nothing more accurate about a process that lets a child's speech, occupational and behavioral therapies lapse over the state's own backlog. It simply punishes families for mistakes they did not make.
"These stories were a long time coming, and the crisis is a manufactured one. In April, I warned that the state was more focused on cutting Medicaid spending than on delivering the care it promised eligible Hoosiers. This investigation, and others in recent weeks, show that playing out. FSSA is doing too much too fast, and vulnerable Hoosiers are paying for the chaos it has created inside the agency.
"What happened in Kokomo is not isolated. Over the past year, 343,000 Hoosiers lost Medicaid coverage, among the highest rates in the country, and up to 40 percent of the cases up for renewal late last year were terminated for procedural reasons rather than any question of eligibility. FSSA can call its new waiver assessment more accurate, but a denial rate that jumped from .02 %to 6% says otherwise, and so does a family in this reporting whose son was restored to coverage within hours of a single email. A cut that can be reversed that fast should never have happened.
"I have heard from constituents living nearly every version of this: the new disability assessment that finds people doing better than they are, waitlists that never end, and paperwork the state never processed. These are families doing everything right and losing coverage because of state errors. They deserve honest answers about who is making these determinations and how, and a system that does not force them to fight for care their children are plainly owed.
"If you are a Hoosier in my district of Carmel, Fishers, Nora and Noblesville who has lost coverage or can't get a straight answer from FSSA about your case, please contact my office. I am here to help."
Constituents may reach out to Garcia Wilburn's office via email at h32@iga.in.gov and via phone at 317-232-9750.