Health Update: House budget amendments & Marsters v Healey Settlement
Health Update April 18, 2024
FY 2025 Budget Update
Next week the House will take up amendments to the HWM budget. Among the 1495 amendments filed last week, we wanted to bring four health-related amendments to your attention:
1. Amendment #1041 Life Insurance Disregard for MassHealth Seniors. (Rep Ultrino) This amendment will exclude the cash surrender value of a life insurance policy from resources that count against the asset upper limit for MassHealth Standard. Historically, life insurance companies targeted sales of life insurance with a cash surrender value to people of color and Medicaid’s complicated verification rules for these policies lead to many procedural denials. Term life insurance has no cash surrender value and is not a countable resource.
2. Amendment #1042 Asset Limit Update for MassHealth Seniors (Rep Ultrino) This amendment will increase the asset upper limit for MassHealth Standard from $2000 for an individual and $3000 for a couple to $10,000 for an individual and $15,000 for a couple. MassHealth asset limits for seniors have not been updated in decades.
3, Amendment #1364 Increasing Public Participation on Structural Change Initiatives to the Comprehensive System of Long-Term Care Benefits and Services (Rep Kerans) This amendment will require a public process and a report of key findings to the legislature before EOHHS moves forward with its plan to hire a single state-wide entity to make the clinical assessments for certain long term services including PCA services that are currently made by community-based nonprofit organizations. EOHHS posted an RFR in Feb 2024 for these sweeping changes in the LTSS system with little or no prior consultation with LTSS providers or consumers.
4. Amendment 1447, Medicaid Coverage for Doula Services, (Rep. Sabadosa) This amendment would lay the foundation for the success of MassHealth's new doula coverage program by (1) creating a workforce development trust fund to meet significant doula workforce shortage issues, (2) creating a doula advisory committee to meet regularly with MassHealth about implementation of the program, and (3) amending the patient bill of rights to give patients the right to have their doula's continuous presence during labor and delivery.
You can find your House representative here to ask for their support for any of these amendments.
Marsters v. Healey Settlement
On April 16, 2024 the parties to the Marsters v. Healy federal class action lawsuit on behalf of nursing home residents seeking to return to a community setting reached a settlement agreement that over the course of eight years will transition at least 2,400 class members from nursing facilities to the community. Congratulations to the plaintiffs and their attorneys from the Center on Public Representation, Greater Boston Legal Services, Justice in Aging and Foley Hoag for this significant victory.
The case was originally filed as Simmons v Baker in 2022. The next step is court action on the parties’ motion to approve the settlement agreement. Read all about it on CPR’s dedicated Marsters v Healey web page including links to a summary of the Agreement, the Full Agreement, Press Releases, Globe coverage of the Settlement and other documents related to the case. View the dedicated Marsters v. Healey web page and related documents.