BARRE, Vt. (WCAX) – Sweeping changes to Medicaid are underway, and Vermont’s free clinics are bracing for an influx of patients no longer eligible for coverage.
The changes could affect thousands of Vermonters. They involve new work requirements and renewal procedures for Medicaid, the federal insurance plan for low-income individuals, and come on the heels of the Trump administration’s federal health care overhaul, aimed at eliminating waste and fraud in the federal healthcare system.
Local affordable health care providers warn the changes will create an even bigger headache for low-income Vermonters navigating the healthcare system.
“We expect to see potentially hundreds of new patients next year who are finding themselves uninsured for the first time,” said Daniel Barlow, the executive director of the People’s Health and Wellness Clinic in Barre, which provides free preventive care to more than 700 Vermonters a year.
At the start of the month, an estimated 235 Vermonters lost Medicaid over their immigration status. Now, roughly 49,000 more are at risk. To keep their coverage, they must prove they’re working or volunteering at least 80 hours a month, and renew their coverage twice a year instead of once.
“With the Medicaid work requirements kicking in next year, we’re really worried that even more Vermonters are going to lose coverage, not because they don’t qualify but because they have missed a piece of paperwork that shows up in the mail for them,” Barlow said.
Barlow said the clinic already saw one surge of new patients at the start of this year when 22 million Americans enrolled in Obamacare lost subsidies that helped make those insurance plans affordable.
“With the end of some of the Affordable Care Act subsidies earlier this year, that people who we never expected to be uninsured– small business owners, teachers, sometimes retirees– they’re suddenly showing up at the free clinic seeking care,” Barlow said.
Vermont only has eight free clinics statewide to take on new patients. Barlow said it’s not just uninsured patients walking through his doors.
“We have a real primary care doctor shortage in Vermont and a lot of the patients that we see who have insurance, even a high-deductible, private insurance plan, they’re coming to the People’s Clinic because they can’t find a primary care doctor who’s accepting new patients,” Barlow said.
The Department of Vermont Health Access has an online resource to check Medicaid coverage status.
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