Capital Corner
By Anne Kennedy – NCOIL General Counsel
Welcome to the latest installment of Capital Corner, a column that aims to update you on some of the issues that NCOIL is following. Below are some of the issues that NCOIL will be discussing at the upcoming NCOIL Annual Meeting.
Medicare and Medicaid at 60 and Katrina at 20: Anniversaries of Change
At the NCOIL Annual Meeting in Atlanta, general sessions will address two pivotal anniversaries that have shaped the nation’s healthcare and insurance landscape: the 60th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid, and the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. These milestones invite us to reflect on how these events have reshaped our understanding of healthcare and catastrophic disasters, while also highlighting the evolving challenges and possibilities that lie ahead.
Medicare was created to provide health insurance to Americans aged 65 and older, regardless of income or medical history1. Medicaid was established as a joint federal-state initiative to help lowincome individuals and families afford medical care2. The fact that Medicaid is jointly funded by federal and state governments has made it vulnerable to political shifts and budget constraints that can lead to coverage reductions or eligibility rollbacks. In the article “Why Did They Do It That Way? Medicaid Financing,” the National Association of Medicaid Directors explains how the federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP) formula ties funding to state income levels, and how Congress can adjust FMAP rates to incentivize or penalize states—making the program sensitive to political and fiscal pressures3.
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