By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services via Arizona Capitol Times
With no immediate congressional action in sight, state Medicaid officials are preparing to implement a contingency plan to ensure that nearly 24,000 children of Arizona working poor do not lose their health care coverage this coming month.
Heidi Capriotti, spokeswoman for the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, said Tuesday her agency will use money it gets from the federal government for the traditional Medicaid plan to pay the premiums for youngsters in the KidsCare program. She said that will mean no interruption in care even as the federal dollars that have funded the program dry up.
But Capriotti warned this is, at best, a short-term solution. She said there are only enough dollars in that Medicaid account to keep the KidsCare premiums paid into the first quarter of 2018.
