Congress recently passed a budget resolution that would mandate severe Medicaid cuts over the next ten years. The Senate and House will now be working on legislation to meet that mandate. 

Psychology professionals’ voice on this issue matters because Medicaid is our nation’s single largest payor for both mental health and behavioral health treatment. Additionally, rates of mental illness are higher among Medicaid beneficiaries than among those with private insurance, Medicare coverage, or no insurance coverage. 

Meeting the deep federal spending cuts in Medicaid described in the budget resolution would require fundamental changes to the program, such as eligibility criteria or how it is financed. These changes include reducing the federal matching rate paid to states to support their Medicaid programs; imposing a per-enrollee limit on federal Medicaid spending; or instituting work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries, which have been shown to decrease access to care without increasing employment. 

If Congress chooses to cut funding for the program, states would be unable to make up for the lost federal dollars, and would be left with no choice but to further reduce reimbursement rates for the program, cut enrollment, or scale back if not eliminate coverage for behavioral health and other optional services. 

Please ask your Senators and Representative to vote against any budget proposal that cuts Medicaid. It is critical that Congress preserve and protect the healthcare safety net providing access to health care for 80 million Americans. Please note that while threats to Medicaid funding and eligibility are our immediate concern, the future of Medicaid will likely be an on-going conversation in Congress over the next months. As discussions around the program evolve, please stay tuned for additional messages from us on this topic.

Additional Resources to Help You Personalize Your Message

Personalizing your message  - by either editing the subject line, or adding to or editing the text to add your own thoughts - will make it more memorable for Congressional staff and therefore greatly increase its impact. To help with that, you can find information relevant to your location and the field of psychology by…

• Visiting the Kaiser Family Foundation map, which shows Medicaid enrollment in U.S. states and congressional districts.
• Consulting state-by-state estimates of the impacts of Medicaid per-capita spending caps. 
• Reading this article on the likely effect of Medicaid cuts on access to behavioral health treatment.

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