Indiana Medicaid beneficiaries fail to make top tier service payment — 5 key notes

More than half of Indiana's 590,315 low-income beneficiaries enrolled in the state's Medicaid program failed to make monthly payments required to receive "top tier" service, the Indy Star reports.

Here's what you should know.

1. The state revoked coverage from 4 percent of people who missed a payment. State officials moved 90 percent of beneficiaries to lower tier coverage plans, with fewer benefits and increased cost-sharing.

2. The payment requirement was Vice President Mike Pence's expanded Medicaid program's keystone, which CMS Administrator Seema Verma designed.

3. If Republicans repeal and replace the ACA, analysts expect CMS to be receptive to approving programs similar to Indiana's Medicaid program.

4. Left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Vice President for Health Policy Judy Solomon, a critic of Indiana's program, said to the Star, "It's time to really step back and think about this as an experiment and whether it's successful."

5. Washington, D.C.-based Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families Executive Director Joan Alker said to the Star, "The evaluation makes clear that Healthy Indiana's complicated use of premium payments is not working. More than half of the enrollees have missed a payment at some point, and as a result are bouncing around in and out of coverage sources or no coverage at all. These are very poor people for whom premiums are a hardship."

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