State Rep. Earl Harris, D-East Chicago, announced in a Tuesday news release that he wants the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration and Gov. Mike Braun to “take immediate steps” to ensure disaster-affected residents don’t lose Medicaid coverage and in-home care.
“(Three) weeks after these storms rolled through Northwest Indiana, many of us are just getting back to some sense of normalcy,” Harris said in a statement. “It’s cruel to even consider kicking an eligible person off of Medicaid or to remove in-home care after what many of our neighbors have been through.”
Since the Aug. 11 derecho tore through Northwest Indiana, Harris said many people have “simply been trying to survive.”
“People have lost food and medication, and some have had thousands of dollars’ worth of damage impact their homes,” Harris said. “It’s hard to blame them if they forgot — or simply lost — paperwork in the wake of this disaster. The least we can do as a state is ensure vulnerable Hoosiers don’t lose yet another necessity as a result of these storms.”
Harris joined state Rep. Victoria Garcia Wilburn, D-Fishers, in the call for Medicaid coverage and in-home care protections. State Rep. Carey Hamilton, D-Indianapolis, also joined Harris and Garcia Wilburn.
According to the Indiana House Democrats website, they’re asking for three actions from the state.
They are asking the FSSA to suspend disenrollments for those in disaster-declared counties who cannot complete a renewal or return requested paperwork because of the storms.
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They’re also asking for extended deadlines of level-of-care assessments and reassessments under the state’s Home- and Community-Based Services waivers and for those to be completed by phone or video to help seniors, people with disabilities and “medically fragile Hoosiers.”
The state representatives also asked the Indiana government to take urgency and pursue any federal flexibilities for affected Hoosiers.
Braun’s Press Secretary Griffin Reid said the governor has deployed “every resource available to assist in this recovery,” including $5,000 emergency relief grants for individuals, temporary housing grants to move families out of shelters, and emergency SNAP resources. He directed Hoosiers who need assistance to text IN211HELP to 898-211.
He didn’t directly address whether the Medicaid pause was possible.
A representative for the FSSA did not respond to a request for comment before deadline.
Garcia Wilburn said in a statement that the state used the same tools during the COVID-19 emergency, and other states have paused Medicaid redeterminations for residents of disaster-hit counties. According to the release, the FSSA previously allowed waiver level-of-care determinations to be done by phone and extended annual assessment deadlines by six months so people wouldn’t lose in-home care.
“You can’t ask someone in Gary or Munster who has been without power for nearly two weeks to answer a notice they never got, on a portal they can’t log into,” Garcia Wilburn said in an Aug. 24 statement. “For seniors and people with disabilities who depend on in-home care, a missed deadline means losing life-sustaining services.”