Issue: Health

Arise legislative recap: March 22, 2019

By Matt Okarmus

We had a problem Tuesday – and we were glad to have it. So many people came to Arise Legislative Day that we couldn’t fit everyone in the State House’s largest committee room! Nearly 300 Arise supporters came to Montgomery to tell their lawmakers that it’s time to expand Medicaid. We appreciate everyone who showed their support for this investment in a healthier Alabama.

 

Click above to watch Arise executive director Robyn Hyden talk about our successful Legislative Day, as well as the Senate’s vote for a bill to make Alabama’s justice system more equitable. We’re excited to build on this momentum when the Legislature returns from spring break on April 2.

Revenue options for Medicaid expansion

By Jim Carnes

Alabama’s budget is an expression of our values. Medicaid expansion means healthier families, thriving communities and a stronger economy. Policymakers have a range of options for making this bold investment in a brighter future. Now is the time to choose.

Remove the state deduction for federal income taxes (FIT)

► $719 million in new revenue per year

► Only two other states offer a full FIT deduction

► This money would allow Alabama to achieve multiple goals:

— Expand Medicaid (cost: $168 million in first year, $25 million per year thereafter)*

— Remove the state sales tax on groceries (cost: approximately $400 million per year)

— Secure long-term funding for ALL Kids (cost: $38.4 million for 2020, approximately $90 million for 2021)*

Remove the state deduction for FICA payroll taxes

► $261 million in new revenue per year*

► Only one other state offers a full FICA deduction

Raise the cigarette tax by $1 per pack

► $180 million in new revenue in 2020

Other revenue options include:

► Make large landowners pay their fair share of property tax

► Tax sugar-sweetened beverages and vaping-related products

► Close corporate tax loopholes – for example, enact combined reporting*

 

* Would require transfer from Education Trust Fund to General Fund

What we’re watching during the 2019 special session

By Jim Carnes

This week brought a first in recent memory at the Alabama Legislature: a session within a session. The regular session began Tuesday, but lawmakers have put it on hold until March 19 to make way for a special session on the state gas tax.

At Gov. Kay Ivey’s call, legislators will consider a proposed 10-cent gas tax increase, to be phased in over three years. (The current tax is 18 cents per gallon.) Ivey’s plan aims to strengthen Alabama’s roads, bridges and port, which has become a mantra for state leaders in the run-up to the 2019 session.

Arise hasn’t taken a position on the gas tax proposal, but we have a lot to say about infrastructure. We’re calling on lawmakers to claim a larger vision of infrastructure as Alabama begins its third century of statehood.

Rural hospitals, for example, are key infrastructure but weren’t mentioned in the governor’s State of the State address Tuesday night. Seven rural hospitals have closed since 2011, including one in Georgiana that will close Friday. Another overlooked sector is public transportation, which receives no state funding in Alabama.

There’s a good chance we’ll see Arise issues emerge in the gas tax debate. For example, the Montgomery Advertiser on Wednesday cited a potential push for Medicaid expansion to win gas tax votes from Democratic members. Some lawmakers also have expressed interest in reducing the grocery tax to offset the effects of the gas tax hike. Wouldn’t it be amazing if a plan to rebuild roads and bridges became the first step toward helping struggling Alabama families get health coverage and make ends meet?

Why is this special session happening?

Ivey called a special session to remove a procedural hurdle for the gas tax bill. To pass in the regular session, any bills other than the Education Trust Fund and General Fund budgets must first win a three-fifths majority in both chambers in a vote called the budget isolation resolution (BIR). But in a special session, any bill included in the governor’s “call” can pass with a simple majority.

The Legislature can meet for up to 12 legislative days across 30 calendar days during a special session. But because the regular session started first, each day of the special session also will count against the 105 calendar days available for the regular session. Lawmakers can meet for up to 30 legislative days during the regular session.

Medicaid expansion by the numbers

By Jim Carnes
  • ± 223,000 Alabamians are caught in the coverage gap, unable to afford health insurance. Another 120,000 or more are stretching to pay for private or employer-based coverage.
  • 13 Alabama hospitals – including 7 rural ones – have closed since 2011.
  • 88 percent of Alabama’s rural hospitals operate in the red.
  • If we expand Medicaid to cover low-income adults, the permanent federal match is 9:1.
  • The first four years of federal match would generate $11.4 billion in new economic activity:

— $6.7 billion in direct federal spending

— $4.6 billion in indirect economic activity

  • Over four years, the enhanced match would free up $316 million in current state spending to address additional unmet health care needs:

— Existing Medicaid groups – $87.1 million

— Mental health & substance abuse – $121.6 million

— Corrections – $46.8 million

— Public health – $60.6 million

  • Expansion-related economic activity would generate $446 million in state tax revenues over four years. New local tax revenues would total $270 million over four years.
  • Net cost to the state would be $168 million in the first year, dropping to about $25 million annually in the following years because of savings and revenues, for a total of $239 million over four years. (This figure does not include local revenue gains.)

Bottom line

Medicaid expansion would help more than 340,000 Alabamians get health coverage, stabilize our rural hospitals and jump-start our economy – all for a dime on the dollar. It’s a bargain Alabama can’t afford to pass up.

(Sources: U.S. Census Bureau; Alabama Hospital Association; David J. Becker, “Medicaid Expansion in Alabama: Revisiting the Economic Case for Expansion,” January 2019; Manatt, “Alabama Medicaid Expansion: Summary of Estimated Costs and Savings, SFYs 2020-2023,” February 2019.)

How to advance our vision for Alabama’s next century

By Chris Sanders

What kind of future do we want for Alabama? It’s a question worth reflecting on as our state enters its third century this year. Are we all right with limiting power and prosperity to a select few? Or would we rather build a state where everyone has a voice and where people of all races, genders and incomes have a real chance to get ahead?

Alabama Arise believes in justice and opportunity for all, and our policy priori­ties flow from that vision. It’s why we support expanding Medicaid for Alabam­ians who can’t afford coverage. It’s why we want to rebalance an upside-down tax system that taxes struggling families deeper into poverty. And it’s why we urge stronger investments in education, housing, public transportation and other services that improve quality of life and promote economic opportunity.

We expect lots of infrastructure talk at the Legislature this year. The regular session starts Tuesday, but lawmak­ers may move quickly into a special session on the gas tax. Gov. Kay Ivey has asked legislators to increase the state’s 18-cent gas tax by 10 cents over three years. That money would fund road and bridge maintenance and oth­er infrastructure improvements.

Many of Alabama’s deteriorating roads are overdue for repair. But the defi­nition of “public infrastructure” goes far beyond tar and gravel. Education, health care and public transportation also help lay the foundation for shared prosperity. This session could bring chances to strengthen those invest­ments – and to make the tax system that funds them more progressive.

Hope on grocery tax, Medicaid expansion

One key breakthrough could be on a longtime Arise priority: ending the state grocery tax. We came heartbreaking­ly close in 2008, when a bill to untax groceries passed the House and fell one vote short in the Senate. But Arise members never gave up the advocacy fight. Now legislators face renewed pressure to end or cut the state’s 4 percent sales tax on groceries. (Some conservative lawmakers are urging a grocery tax reduction to accompany a gas tax increase.) Alabama is one of only three states with no tax break on groceries. It’s a highly regressive tax on a basic necessity, hitting hardest on people who struggle to make ends meet.

Pressure also is building for Alabama to expand Medicaid to cover more than 340,000 adults with low incomes. Medicaid expansion would save hun­dreds of lives annually and create a healthier, more productive workforce. It also would help save rural hospitals, support thousands of jobs and pump hundreds of millions of dollars into the economy.

Our work for a brighter, more inclu­sive future won’t end there. We’ll keep pushing for stronger consumer protec­tions against high-cost payday loans. We’ll make the case for the state to fund public transportation and remove barriers to voter registration. And we’ll continue seeking an end to injustices in Alabama’s civil asset forfeiture and death penalty systems. Visit our website and follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates on these issues throughout the year.

Better policy choices on taxes, transit can improve Alabamians’ health

By Chris Sanders

Deeper and smarter investments in education, housing, infrastructure and other vital services can eliminate barriers to good health for low-income residents and communities of color, according to a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a nonpartisan policy research organization based in Washington, D.C.

Alabama can take many important policy steps to remove barriers to better health. These include:

  • Expand Medicaid to cover more than 340,000 adults with low incomes.
  • Provide state funding for public transportation to help seniors, people with disabilities, and people who can’t afford a car get to work or the doctor’s office and meet other basic needs.
  • End the state grocery tax to make it easier for families to make ends meet.
  • Modernize the state’s upside-down tax system to ensure Alabama raises enough money to invest in vital services and doesn’t tax struggling people deeper into poverty.

“Good health and good quality of life go hand in hand,” Alabama Arise executive director Robyn Hyden said. “By investing in Medicaid and public transportation and making our tax system more progressive, Alabama can build a stronger, healthier, more prosperous future for everyone.”

Income and wealth inequality, on top of centuries of structural racism, have taken their toll on health for black Alabamians. Black residents of our state die three years earlier than white residents, on average. Black babies in Alabama are twice as likely as white babies to be born with low birth weight, and they are twice as likely to die before their first birthdays.

Social, economic and environmental factors account for half of an individual’s health, the CBPP report says. That finding underscores the importance of investments in the common good.

“If Alabama really wants to improve the health of its residents, policymakers must prioritize education, housing, the environment, infrastructure, health programs and other public investments in their budgets,” CBPP senior policy analyst Jennifer Sullivan said.

Budget hearings show need for Alabama to expand Medicaid, boost public investments

By Chris Sanders

Alabama needs to expand Medicaid and invest more in education and other human services. Those were key takeaways from this week’s state budget hearings in Montgomery. The hearings highlighted a range of policy challenges and illustrated the connections between many of them.

We heard a lot of talk this week about the need to strengthen Alabama’s “infrastructure.” Many legislators say the state just doesn’t have enough money to make further investments in human infrastructure – the services like health care, child welfare and public safety that serve as a basic measure of what we value. But that’s incorrect.

Alabama’s lack of money for education, health care, child care and other services isn’t a natural force like the weather. It’s the result of decades of policy choices, as our Tax & Budget Handbook shows. And better choices can lead to better outcomes for Alabama.

Medicaid expansion could cut costs for corrections, DHR

Numerous agency leaders identified Alabama’s fraying rural health care system as a major concern. Rural hospital closures hurt communities and make it harder to get care. A lack of mental health care takes a toll on families, schools and workers. And both challenges increase financial strain on the corrections system.

The opioid epidemic is one problem that cuts across multiple areas: corrections, education, human resources, law enforcement, Medicaid, mental health and public health. Many parents fighting addiction lose child custody to the Department of Human Resources (DHR), which struggles to recruit foster parents for an average $16 daily allowance.

While bare-bones health agencies tackle the epidemic’s medical consequences, Alabama’s corrections system has emerged as the largest provider of mental health services, with many of them linked to substance use disorders.

That’s true even as Alabama’s prison overcrowding remains staggeringly high. The state prison system once operated at nearly double its designed capacity. Recent sentencing reforms helped cut that rate to 163 percent, and Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn expects it to sink to 145 percent. But further reductions are unlikely without broader changes, Dunn said.

Rural hospital closures affect prison overcrowding, too. Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, said a private prison in Perry County is vacant despite an appropriation to buy it. The county has no hospital, which would make it hard to use the prison even if the state bought it, Ward said.

Medicaid expansion would cut costs and improve lives across all these areas of concern. It would stem the tide of rural hospital closures. It would expand access to mental health and substance use treatment. And that would save many Alabamians from going to jail or losing child custody. Arise members and other advocates must keep making the case for Medicaid expansion throughout 2019.

Decades of inadequate funding cause unmet needs, staff shortages

Our state’s upside-down tax system requires most Alabamians to pay twice the share of income in state and local taxes that the richest households pay on average. It also means Alabama struggles to raise enough money to fund health care, child welfare and other important services.

Staff shortages were a running theme at this year’s budget hearings. Alabama’s corrections and mental health commissioners both emphasized problems with hiring and keeping qualified employees. DHR cited high turnover in child welfare staff, who are first on the scene when children’s safety is at risk. And the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) needs more state troopers to ensure highway safety.

DHR Commissioner Nancy Buckner asked lawmakers for an additional $21 million for 2020. Buckner said DHR struggles to retain staff, especially in the stressful child welfare division, which has 36 percent turnover. “Anything you can see on TV, we probably have multiple cases,” Buckner said.

The new money would allow for salary increases, technology improvements, and higher payments for foster families, Buckner said. Foster parents are difficult to recruit, she said, and the opioid epidemic has left more children in foster care.

For corrections, Dunn asked for another $42 million to hire and retain 500 prison guards and improve mental health services. (Low unemployment makes it harder to retain officers, Dunn said, because they often can earn more at safer jobs.) A federal judge has ordered Alabama to address its guard shortage and inadequate health services in state prisons.

ALEA Secretary Hal Taylor requested another $8.7 million to provide raises and hire 50 new state troopers. Up to 200 troopers could retire soon, Taylor said, and ALEA must compete with other departments for officers.

K-12 schools seek to hire more teachers, expand mental health support

Alabama schools discussed their needs for 2020 as well. State school Superintendent Eric Mackey requested an additional $295 million from the Education Trust Fund. With that money, schools could hire more teachers in grades 4-6 and invest more in the Alabama Reading Initiative. They also could hire more school nurses and provide a $600 allowance per teacher for classroom supplies.

Mackey asked for an extra $270 per student to teach about 25,000 students for whom English is a second language. And he requested another $22 million for school safety improvements and school-based mental health services.

Mackey echoed other agency heads by raising concerns about future personnel shortages. A recent survey of high school seniors found only 4 percent want to become teachers, down from 12 percent in previous surveys, Mackey said.

Sen. Vivian Figures, D-Mobile, asked Mackey to address the state Department of Education’s listing of 76 schools as “failing.” Most of those schools are in low-income areas and serve mostly black students. Mackey said the Alabama Accountability Act requires him to designate the lowest performing 6 percent of schools as “failing,” no matter how well they may educate students. The Accountability Act, enacted mere hours after introduction in 2013, diverts tens of millions of dollars a year from public schools to private school scholarship funds.

ALL Kids, pre-K, SNAP offer models for success

The budget hearings painted a stark picture of Alabama’s challenges, but they brought good news, too. Lawmakers heard numerous examples of how investments in health care and education are paying off.

Alabama’s rate of uninsured children is among the South’s best, and ALL Kids is a big reason why. The program provides health coverage for children whose low- and middle-income households don’t qualify for Medicaid. ALL Kids was the country’s first Children’s Health Insurance Program, and it remains a national performance leader in children’s health coverage.

The Program for All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) provides an exemplary community-based long-term care option for residents of Mobile and Baldwin counties. The state’s commitment to pre-kindergarten has created a model for early childhood education. And aggressive workforce training programs in K-12 and two-year colleges are boosting Alabama’s economic potential.

Medicaid Commissioner Stephanie Azar highlighted investments in long-term care reform and primary care reform. The statewide Integrated Care Network (ICN) has already launched its case management system, designed to steer more long-term care patients into home- and community-based services. On the primary care side, Alabama Coordinated Health Networks (ACHNs) will launch in seven regions this fall. That move will bring Medicaid decision-making closer to communities and emphasize preventive and coordinated care.

Buckner thanked DHR’s Food Assistance Division for ensuring Alabamians received benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) during the recent federal government shutdown. Facing a Jan. 20 deadline to distribute February benefits, employees worked nights and weekends to approve 1,700 SNAP applications.

Buckner also praised the Food Assistance Division for earning federal bonuses of $2.4 million for timely processing of applications and low error rates in benefit calculations. Unfortunately for Alabama, which has a highly efficient and accurate SNAP program, Congress ended future bonuses in the 2018 Farm Bill.

It’s time to invest in a brighter future

Successful investments like these aren’t “one and done.” Alabama must resume providing some state money for ALL Kids next year as full federal funding ends. PACE seeks to expand, but its requests have been rejected so far. Only one-third of Alabama’s 4-year-olds are enrolled in pre-K. And gearing up for the 21st century will require even bolder workforce development.

Treading water is not enough. Education, Medicaid and other vital services need more funding so they can do more than the bare minimum. Smart investments in these services will pay off in a stronger, healthier future for all Alabamians.

Policy director Jim Carnes, policy analyst Carol Gundlach and communications director Chris Sanders contributed to this post.

Alabama should expand Medicaid to continue gains in children’s health coverage, new national report indicates

By Chris Sanders

Alabama still has one of the lowest rates of uninsured children in the country, but its progress on that measure stalled in 2017, according to a report released Thursday by Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families (CCF).

The state’s uninsured rate for children (3.1 percent) remained below the national average (5 percent) in 2017. But after years of improvement, Alabama’s number of uninsured children under 19 ticked up from 32,000 in 2016 to 36,000 in 2017. While the increase was not statistically significant, it is a warning sign that Alabama could slip backward in children’s health care if policymakers do not protect and expand coverage, Alabama Arise policy director Jim Carnes said.

“Alabama’s rate of uninsured children has improved from 20 percent to just 3.1 percent in the last two decades, and CHIP and Medicaid have played big roles in that success,” Carnes said. “Our state should build on those gains by expanding Medicaid to cover uninsured adults. Medicaid expansion would boost financial security for struggling parents and increase the odds that their children get and stay insured. It would be a win for children, a win for families and a win for Alabama.”

Congress’ delay last year in renewing federal funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) was a driver of the uptick in Alabama’s number of uninsured kids, the Georgetown CCF study says. CHIP covers about 171,000 Alabama children living in families with low or moderate incomes, including more than 84,000 on ALL Kids. Congressional efforts to cap and cut Medicaid and undermine the Affordable Care Act also likely contributed to the increase, the report finds.

Medicaid work requirement hurts struggling families

By Alabama Arise

Alabama Medicaid is trying to take health coverage away from our state’s poorest parents struggling to make ends meet. Gov. Kay Ivey has to get federal permission to make this harmful change. Here’s why that shouldn’t happen:

The work requirement creates a no-win, catch-22 situation.

  • It targets 75,000 of the poorest Alabamians.
  • It’s a trap: They lose coverage if they don’t work AND if they do.
  • Without Medicaid expansion, it’s a work

The work requirement hurts families and children.

  • It targets people who are already working at home, taking care of children.
  • It ignores the shortage of affordable child care and public transportation.
  • Taking away parents’ health coverage will put their children’s health at risk.

The work requirement hurts the state budget.

  • Keeping track of who’s working, who’s looking for work, who’s not working and who’s exempt is hard and expensive. Those extra administrative costs will threaten other services like mental health and child protection.
  • If the state expands child care to help the new working parents, as it should, that’s another big cost to the state.
  • The plan does not show total state costs – which taxpayers deserve to know.

The work requirement goes against the mission of Medicaid.

  • Congress set up Medicaid in 1965 to provide health coverage for people with low incomes and medical need.
  • Cutting off health coverage in the name of promoting work violates Medicaid’s core purpose.

It’s vital to keep up the drumbeat of opposition. Alabama Medicaid got more than 800 public comments in Round 1 and more than 650 in a surprise Round 2. Next comes Round 3, the crucial federal comment period. Stay tuned for details!

Proposed Alabama Medicaid changes are ‘a catch-22 that forces people into the coverage gap,’ Alabama Arise tells officials

By Alabama Arise

Alabama’s proposed new Medicaid work requirement waiver would be costly, counterproductive, ineffective and harmful to thousands of families who live in deep poverty, Alabama Arise wrote in official comments submitted to state Medicaid officials on Thursday, Oct. 11, 2018.

“Threatening loss of health care in an attempt to force work efforts, without providing the supports that would make those work attempts successful, is flagrantly cruel and will result in no outcome other than poorer, more desperate and less healthy Alabama families,” Arise’s comments concluded.

Medicaid covers about 1 million Alabamians. Of that total, the waiver would target 7.5 percent of them – about 75,000 adults with extremely low incomes who qualify for Medicaid as parents or other caretaker relatives of children. Alabamians in this group are ineligible for Medicaid if their incomes exceed 18 percent of the federal poverty level (about $312 a month for a family of three).

Because Alabama has not expanded Medicaid to cover adults with incomes below the poverty level, the state’s work requirement plan would create a “work penalty, a catch-22 that forces people into the coverage gap,” Arise wrote. About 300,000 Alabamians already are caught in the coverage gap, earning too much for Medicaid but too little to qualify for federal subsidies for Marketplace plans.

Parents who work just 10 hours a week at minimum wage earn too much to qualify for Medicaid. But the state’s proposal would require them to engage in work-related activities between 20 to 35 hours a week. That would leave thousands of Alabama parents in a no-win situation: They would lose their Medicaid coverage if they don’t work – and also if they do. Of the parents who would not qualify for an exemption – about 1.7 percent of Alabama’s total Medicaid population, by the state’s estimates – virtually all of them would end up uninsured, without access to employer-provided coverage or an affordable private plan.

Alabama’s proposal does not project the state’s cost to track Medicaid enrollees’ work activities and exemptions. It also does not identify whether or how the state would invest in child care, job training, transportation and other supports that low-income parents need to get and keep work.