The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) issued a national report showing Medicaid is the most important source of funding for mental health services.
The report, Medicaid Expansion and Mental Health Care, revealed up to 30 percent of currently uninsured adults who would receive health care coverage through state Medicaid expansions are individuals living with mental illness. The Florida legislature’s rejection of Medicaid expansion forces Florida to lose a total of $66 million in federal Medicaid funds over the next ten years and relinquishes the opportunity to save $1.2 million in uncompensated care costs.
“If the country has learned anything at all over the last year, it is that the mental health care system must be strengthened,” said Judi Evans, executive director of NAMI Florida. “Expanding Medicaid to 138 percent of the Federal Poverty Level is the best chance Florida has to rebuild the mental health care system.”
The report focuses on the mental health implications of Medicaid expansion. Coverage would have allowed more than 244,000 Floridians with mental illness to access community mental health services, including identification of mental health problems.
“After recent tragedies, lawmakers pledged to make it easier for people with mental illness to receive care, but fewer than half of the Floridians who live with mental illness get any treatment,” said Evans. “Without Medicaid expansion, those people have been abandoned. When mental illness goes untreated, costs shift to emergency rooms and the criminal justice system. Families break up. Taxpayers end up paying avoidable costs.”
During the 2013 legislative session, the Senate proposed to use federal Medicaid dollars, made available under the Affordable Care Act, to expand the popular Florida Healthy Kids program. The Florida Healthy Kids program would have offered vouchers to uninsured adults to purchase private health insurance, but the legislature passed a budget without the funding for Medicaid expansion.
“By rejecting Medicaid expansion, Florida will be left behind, faced with going it alone in trying to strengthen the mental health care system,” said Evans. “That’s not fair to anyone – people living with mental illness, families, local communities, or taxpayers. We urge Florida legislators to rethink this shortsighted decision.”
