ABSTRACT
Despite no federal law mandating Medicaid termination for prisoners, 90 percent of states have implemented policies that withdraw inmates’ enrollment upon incarceration. This leaves a medically and psychiatrically vulnerable population uninsured during the months following release, a time period during which former inmates have been shown to have an increased risk of medical problems and death. We believe it is of critical importance for the 10 million Americans who cycle in and out of corrections each year, as well as the communities they return to, that Medicaid be suspended rather than terminated during incarceration.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported in part by grant no. 1K24DA022112-01A from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health (NIDA/NIH), to Dr. Rich and by grant no. P30-AI-42853 from the National Institutes of Health, Center for AIDS Research (NIH/CFAR).
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Wakeman, S.E., McKinney, M.E. & Rich, J.D. Filling the Gap: The Importance of Medicaid Continuity for Former Inmates. J GEN INTERN MED 24, 860–862 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-009-0977-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-009-0977-x