New Report Shows Policy Change Would Hurt Youth in Foster Care

According to a new report issued by Casey Family Programs, proposed cuts to Medicaid significantly threaten the health and well-being of the 800,000 children and youth who spend time in our foster care system each year. Children in foster care have faced not only the trauma of maltreatment that necessitated their removal from their homes, but also the stresses of entering into a foster home and navigating new living environments, schooling, and peer relationships.

A recent study by Casey Family Programs and Harvard Medical School found that over 50% of young adults who had formerly been in foster care will have at least one major mental health problem, and 1 in 4 will suffer from post traumatic stress disorder, more than double the rate of returning war veterans.

The report says several proposals in Congress could do great harm. The report's authors offered the following recommendations to safeguard the health and well-being of children and adolescents:

• Reject reductions in Medicaid that will harm both children and the child welfare systems on which they depend.

• Reject any rollback in the Early and Periodic Screening Diagnostic and Treatment Program (EPSDT).
• Reject any proposal that would unravel the working relationship between Medicaid and child welfare by terminating payment for essential behavioral health services furnished through child welfare agencies.
• Reject cost-sharing proposals that affect coverage for low-income children, especially children receiving child welfare services or children in foster care.
• Support proposals that strengthen the delivery of preventive health and mental health services to children in foster care.
• Strengthen existing provisions of Medicaid that provide for continued Medicaid eligibility for adolescents transitioning from foster care.

The report's authors were David Rubin, MD, MSCE, Department of Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania; Neal Halfon, MD, MPH, Departments of Pediatrics, Public Health and Public Policy, UCLA; Ramesh Raghavan, MD, PhD, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA; and Sara Rosenbaum, JD, Department of Health Policy, The George Washington University.