Advocate, Thank you for joining Mental Health America over the last several months as we educated Congress about the importance of Medicaid for addressing mental health and substance use conditions. Though we urged Congress to vote against cuts to Medicaid funding in H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, unfortunately, the bill passed both chambers and has been signed into law. H.R. 1 significantly reduces federal funding for state Medicaid programs. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that H.R. 1 will eliminate nearly a trillion dollars from state Medicaid programs over ten years. We are very disappointed that the reduced funding will likely lead states to drop millions of people from their health care plans and reduce the types of services offered by states. You may also be feeling disappointed, as we know that health coverage is essential for access to needed mental health and substance use services, and these services promote recovery. The silver lining is that thanks to our advocacy, Congress did exempt people with substance use and mental health disorders from paying newly created co-pays for services and from work reporting requirements. The law also includes MHA’s suggested language that requires states to use existing data on file to verify that individuals qualify as exempt from work requirements, rather than placing the burden on those individuals to verify their eligibility. Our suggestion will lead to fewer people losing their Medicaid coverage when they have a diagnosis for a mental health or substance use condition. We are so grateful for your help over the last several months, and we will continue fighting together for Medicaid moving forward by gearing our advocacy to governors and state agency leaders. Thank you again for being part of our national movement - we couldn’t have made any impact without you - and we will fight on together. |
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