US Citizens - Proof of Citizenship Will Be Required to Obtain Medicaid Benefits

Under strict new standards that will be issued this week by the Bush administration, 50 million people who are currently enrolled in Medicaid, and anyone applying for Medicaid after June 30, will have to provide proof of citizenship within 45 days (90 days for people with disabilities) to their state programs or risk being “denied or terminated” from the program. Documentation includes (in order of preference) passports or naturalization certificates, birth certificates, non-government documents showing place of birth, and, only in “rare circumstances,” affidavits. In many states currently, individuals just need to declare that they are citizens without proof. A letter about the new guidelines that the Bush administration plans to send to state officials this week, however, says that “[s]elf-attestation of citizenship and identity is no longer an acceptable practice.” (The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/05/washington/05medicaid.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1149480000&en=f81578f4dd1d8a2e&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin), 6/5/06) Read (http://www.nmha.org/newsroom/system/lal.vw.cfm?do=vw&rid=835) NMHA's alert on this new Medicaid requirement.