Health and Education, Policy Updates
On to the Next Round….
by Ashley Lidow on Sep 17, 2018
The South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (SCDHHS) has applied for a Medicaid waiver to change the way that family planning services are delivered in South Carolina. While the stated intentions of the waiver are to improve maternal and child healthcare, this change in policy will limit South Carolinians’ access to the health care provider that they choose and the health services they need.
Earlier this summer, SCDHHS accepted public comments on the waiver and then a second comment period occurred in August. Once the state comment period closed SCDHHS prepared the waiver application further and then sent it up to the federal government for review. A visual of the process is below; the red arrow indicates where we currently are in the process.
This is where we need your help again. The federal comment period for this pending demonstration will be open from September 7, 2018 through October 7, 2018. This questionnaire is open and it is due to close on Oct 7th 2018 11:00 pm. All responses are anonymous.
We need your public comment to demand that women and children don’t lose access to healthcare providers and services.
Click here to reach the comment page; it should look like the image below: https://public.medicaid.gov/connect.ti/public.comments/view?objectId=1898275
Then click “Answer the Questionnaire” to leave your comment.
We encourage you to leave a comment that strongly opposes the waiver. An example comment could be:
I strongly oppose any effort to ban qualified providers from receiving state, local, and federal funds. If implemented as proposed, this waiver will restrict provider participation in the Medicaid program and limit women’s access to essential health services. I urge you to reject this waiver.
As a reminder: according to the SCDHHS webinar on the waiver, this waiver stems from the governor’s executive order last year calling to exclude abortion clinics from our state’s Medicaid provider network. Given this, the true intention behind this waiver is clear: to remove healthcare providers who are trusted by the community and provide needed, basic healthcare services like cancer screening, contraception, testing and treatment for STIs, and abortion care.
No woman or child should be denied care because of what healthcare provider they choose. Register your comment today and protect our options for healthcare.