Medicaid Covers Foster Kids, But Daunting Health Needs Still Slip Through The Crack

(By Phil Galewitz for Kaiser Health News)

Sherri and Thomas Croom have been foster parents to 27 children — from newborns to teenagers — during the past decade.

That has meant visits to dozens of doctors and dentists for issues ranging from a tonsillectomy to depression.

While foster parenting has innumerable challenges, health care coverage for the children isn’t one of them. Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for the poor, picks up the tab for nearly all children in foster care and often continues to cover them if they are adopted, regardless of their parents’ income. And as a result of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, foster children who have Medicaid at 18 can retain the coverage until they turn 26. Continue reading article here…

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

Notice: The link provided above connects readers to the full content of the posted article. The URL (internet address) for this link is valid on the posted date; medicarereport.org cannot guarantee the duration of the link’s validity. Also, the opinions expressed in these postings are the viewpoints of the original source and are not explicitly endorsed by AMAC, Inc.; the AMAC Foundation, Inc.; or medicarereport.org.