Take Action Today to Demand Federal Medicaid Disability Funding

INARF's national partner, ANCOR, shared an action alert regarding its efforts to advocate for COVID-19 funding relief for our industry. INARF encourages you to use ANCOR's email tool to ask your members of Congress to pressure the Administration to designate emergency health funding for Medicaid-funded disability supports.

​INARF also encourages you to share this information with staff, individuals, and families as appropriate. If you have questions, contact Katy Stafford-Cunningham at [email protected].

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Next week, the federal government is expected to announce how it will spend the remainder of emergency funds Congress appropriated last month through the CARES Act. So far, none of that funding has reached Medicaid-funded providers of disability services. Take two minutes today to ask Congress to step up to its oversight role for this funding.

The Ask: Tell Congress today using our action tool that it must pressure the Administration to designate emergency health funding to go to Medicaid-funded disability supports. Make sure your elected officials know that it is unacceptable that these critical supports and the vulnerable communities they serve keep being overlooked.

The Details: As part of the CARES Act, Congress created the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund, which included $100 billion to help frontline health workers and social services address the coronavirus pandemic. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is responsible for distributing the money in the Emergency Fund and immediately gave $30 billion to Medicare providers in the first tranche of funding. More recently, HHS announced it was allocating:

• An additional $20 billion for Medicare providers.
• $10 billion for hospitals in severely impacted areas.
• $10 billion for hospitals in rural areas.
• $10 billion to assist the uninsured.
• $400 million for the Indian Health Service.

​That leaves just under $20 billion in the Emergency Fund that has not yet been distributed. Congress must use this week to insist that when HHS distributes the remaining funding, it is specifically designated for providers of Medicaid-funded disability supports.

Please continue the strong advocacy you have engaged in so far and speak up on behalf of Medicaid disability supports today!

Take Action Today!