After an attempt to repeal Obamacare was pulled from a floor vote at the last minute, Congressmen in D.C. have continued to hammer out a successful Affordable Care Act replacement plan.
In a deal expected to be discussed next week, Medicaid beneficiaries who can work may be required to do so in order to maintain their eligibility status. In other cases, a small fee may be owed for the typically taxpayer-funded assistance.
Even if a law required able-bodied Medicaid recipients to work or pay a fee to receive benefits, 76% would be unable to do so.
In Mississippi, an overwhelming amount of the current 761,376 Medicaid recipients are children and the disabled.
According to the 2017 numbers released by the Mississippi Division of Medicaid, January recorded 376,146 children who qualified for the benefits, and an additional 47,909 on CHIP. Those numbers exclude children with disabilities. My March 2017, those numbers decreased to 375, 378.
There has been a steady decrease in the number of children on Medicaid benefits over the last two years.
February 2015 saw 400,232 children on Medicaid, while February of 2017 saw 375,826.
The state’s disabled population is small by comparison, with a current enrollment of disabled Medicaid beneficiaries being 173,820. In March 2016 there were 176,698. In March 2015, there were 177,738.
Currently, Mississippi’s children and disabled persons on Medicaid account for roughly 597,000 of the 761,376 enrollees.
News Mississippi reached out the state’s Division of Medicaid and they were not available for comment.
For a further breakdown of the numbers, click here.
