Capilouto E, Thorpe K E, Dailey T E
University of Alabama School of Public Health, Lister Hill Center for Health Policy.
Inquiry. 1992 Winter;29(4):451-6.
Medicaid, as an existing program with federal matching dollars, remains attractive to state legislatures looking for a means to address the problems of the uninsured. However, the extent to which states can maximize coverage of the poor uninsured under Medicaid's present eligibility criteria is unknown. Surprisingly, this study of nine Southern states shows a modest 14.8% reduction in the uninsured population when the AFDC income eligibility threshold is moved up to the federal poverty level. This threshold is twice as high as the national mean and three times greater than the mean income eligibility threshold for the nine states that were the focus of this study. In sharp contrast, elimination of the categorical eligibility requirements under the same poverty-level threshold reduces the uninsured population by nearly 40%.
医疗补助计划作为一个有联邦配套资金的现有项目，对于寻求解决未参保者问题方法的州立法机构来说仍然具有吸引力。然而，在医疗补助计划目前的资格标准下，各州能在多大程度上最大限度地覆盖贫困未参保者尚不清楚。令人惊讶的是，这项对九个南方州的研究表明，当将“对有子女家庭补助计划”（AFDC）的收入资格门槛提高到联邦贫困水平时，未参保人口仅适度减少了14.8%。这个门槛是全国平均水平的两倍，是本研究重点关注的九个州平均收入资格门槛的三倍。形成鲜明对比的是，在相同贫困水平门槛下取消类别资格要求，未参保人口减少了近40%。
