Medicaid State Plan Requirement for Determining Residency of Military Families

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 8108, a bill that would amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to add a Medicaid State plan requirement regarding the determination of residency of people serving in the armed services.

Medicaid is the primary payer for home and community-based services, serving as the safety net for people with long-term care needs, including military families. Medicaid provides coverage for home and community-based services when other insurers, including TRICARE, do not.

Military families face unique stressors when a family member has a need for home and community-based services and needs to relocate for military service. For example, when a child with disabilities is receiving home and community-based services covered by the Medicaid program in the same State in which they live, there is no guarantee that the child will continue to receive care in the State where the family is being relocated.

In many States, families wait years on a waiting list to receive these services, and once they are finally able to access the care they need, the time may come to move again. Military families in this position may face a difficult choice: Do they keep their family together, knowing that their child may lose access to care in the State in which they are moving, or do they separate the family to ensure their child is able to access the care they need? These are decisions that military families simply should not have to make.

H.R. 8108 would lessen the burden military families face by requiring States to continue to provide Medicaid coverage to dependents of Active-Duty military servicemembers who are receiving Medicaid home and community-based services and must move out of State due to military service. It also allows families that are on waiting lists to maintain their place on those lists so they, too, are not forced to start over.

While H.R. 8108 does not address the many underlying issues with our patchwork long-term care system, including those that have led to the existence of waiting lists, I am pleased that it will help ease some of the challenges that military families face in receiving the care they need.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representatives Kiggans and Kaptur for their leadership on this very important issue, and I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 8108.

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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, this is an important bill for individuals serving in the Armed Forces and their families, so I urge my colleagues to vote for it on a bipartisan basis.

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