Indiana Gov. Mike Braun signs executive order to stop advertising for Medicaid

INDIANAPOLIS (WNDU) - Nearly 2 million Hoosiers rely on Medicaid, a healthcare program designed to support people with limited resources and income.

But yesterday, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun signed orders to stop advertising for Medicaid.

“So that’s a broken program in the sense that they don’t know what to do with it out in Congress in terms of sustaining it long term,” Gov. Braun said. “For those of you that want that program to stay in place, for those who can’t afford it, we’re going to have to do a better job at running it as opposed to have more people coming on to run it.”

But these ideas have been met with a lot of disagreement.

“So, I’ve been working in law, especially elder law, for the past 25 years. And I will say we’ve seen it get nothing, but it gets worse and worse. I never thought it would get this bad,” said Jennifer VanderVeen, a certified elder law attorney at VanderVeen Elder and Special Needs Law.

Attorney VanderVeen said the main issue with this new Medicaid proposed plan is that people will now have to apply for eligibility to the Medicaid program quarterly when it used to be annually.

This means a lot more paperwork as it will take longer to get that paperwork processed for the people.

“It’s taking longer to get things processed right now, even with having only annual redeterminations,” VanderVeen said. “Going to quarterly redeterminations is likely to lead to further backlogs and additional mistakes in the processing of these applications because the staff simply doesn’t have the time to process them.”

But some healthcare professionals are working to make sure people get the care they need nationwide.

“From my heart, I would tell you we all have a responsibility to people who are lower income, can have access to affordable health coverage,” said Mikh Yusupov, MPA, founder and owner of Affordable Care Agents

Some people are worried that stopping Medicaid advertisements will leave some people in the dark when it comes to their healthcare options. But on the other hand, Attorney VanderVeen says that applications are already backed up for the next 18 months.

That really shows the growing need for affordable healthcare in Michiana.