A California Medicaid waiver, to use funds in detention centers for pre-release individuals, has sparked a chain reaction of close to half the country jumping in line to do the same.
Governing reported the most recent numbers on states that have successfully applied for waivers to use Medicaid funds for healthcare services in local detention centers, specifically for incarcerated individuals that are pre-release. California, Massachusetts, Montana, and Washington are all approved and twenty other states, including Maryland are lining up for similar authority. As previously covered on Conduit Street, the federal Medicaid Inmate Exclusion Policy, has barred pre-trial, sentenced, and pre-release individuals from receiving covered services regardless of eligibility.
With large numbers of detained populations needing intensive physical and mental healthcare services, the full costs have been borne by the governments running those facilities. In Maryland's local detention centers those costs are covered by the county governments. The waiver currently being sought by the Maryland Department of Health will not include local facilities.
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