Thousands left in the dark on Medicaid | www.myajc.com

Thousands of poor Georgians are trapped in governmental purgatory with no clue when — or whether — they may finally get health coverage. The culprit: a chronic disconnect between federal and state systems that is still festering nearly six months into the Health Insurance Marketplace’s operation.

About 90,000 people who applied for coverage on HealthCare.gov are potentially eligible for Georgia’s Medicaid program, the federal government has concluded. But, state officials say, the feds haven’t given them enough information about these individuals to verify that they actually qualify for Medicaid. Equally troubling, they say, is that the data they have is unreliable.

“There are a lot of inconsistencies,” Department of Community Health Commissioner Clyde Reese said. “Some of (the applicants) were actually from other states, so we’ve been hesitant to use that to make any true eligibility determination.”

When the marketplace launched last October it was supposed to be a one-stop shop — seamlessly directing millions of Americans to the kind of health coverage that was appropriate for them, whether Medicaid or a private insurance plan.

But the federal and state computers were unable to talk to each other, a problem that still persists in many states today.

The lingering problems have proved irksome — even for some Georgians who aren’t trying to enroll in Medicaid.

When HealthCare.gov deemed his son eligible for PeachCare for Kids (the Medicaid program for children in Georgia), Matt Cramer of Covington was skeptical — for good reason.

Cramer, who works for a small company specializing in race car electronics, makes too much money for his child to be on PeachCare. But until Cramer could get a rejection letter from the state, a marketplace representative told him, he couldn’t access federal tax credits available to help him buy private insurance through the site.

He was told to fill out a new application on HealthCare.gov. Then he was told to go directly to the state’s Medicaid application website, COMPASS, with no immediate results. He called the state numerous times, including spending an hour and 20 minutes on hold during one call, but couldn’t get a live person on the phone. Cramer’s pregnant wife trudged down to the state’s Division of Family and Children Services office in person — the first of four such visits — in search of answers.

“We just tried to keep plugging away,” Cramer said. “It was like climbing the Matterhorn of red tape.”

via Thousands left in the dark on Medicaid | www.myajc.com.