Voices defends health reform’s expansion of Medicaid in filing to Supreme Court

Voices for America’s Children, the Children’s Leadership Council, and other child and family organizations together filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday in defense of the Medicaid expansion provision in the Affordable Care Act.  You can read our brief online.

The Medicaid expansion provision increases program eligibility for all legal residents up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, which is $30,657 for a family of four.

After the jump are several key reasons why the Medicaid expansion is so critical for children’s health.

• It will offer health coverage to an additional 16 million Americans, approximately 7-8 million of whom are likely to be low-income children.
• More than half of uninsured children are members of minority groups and over a third are Latino, according to the Children’s Defense Fund.  The Medicaid expansion will further encourage enrollment among these groups.
• With more children currently living in poverty as a result of this “Great Recession,” the expansion of Medicaid eligibility will prove even more vital for children whose caregivers become unemployed or underemployed over the next several years.
• A ruling against the Medicaid expansion would equate to a legal earthquake that could extend well beyond health care, upending the legal foundation of laws such as the No Child Left Behind and other federal-state partnerships.  It also may impact programs such as Head Start, TANF, and the Child Care and Development Block Grant, which would potentially detriment tens of millions of children.

Our amicus brief to the high court states, “Congress and the States have used Medicaid not simply as a funding mechanism to help poor, elderly, and medically indigent Americans but also to address broader national concerns, such as reducing infant mortality, improving childhood immunization rates, improving access to costly outpatient prescription drugs, and encouraging community-based alternatives to institutional care.”

Voices for America’s Children strongly believes the Medicaid expansion provision will provide these and other benefits to more low-income children.  We strongly encourage the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the health reform law when it considers the case this spring.