On Tuesday, January 14, 2020, Health Affairs published a blog post titled, “Cutting Medicaid Non-emergency Medical Transportation Will Harm Community-Level Public Transportation.” The essay and a related report were written by Michael Adelberg, who leads research for the Medical Transportation Access Coalition (MTAC), and Scott Bogren and Alexandra King of the Community Transportation Association of America, an MTAC allied member organization and trade association for community transportation agencies.
MTAC thanks Health Affairs for the continued support and publication of the coalition’s analysis on the importance of medical transportation. As the post and report show, non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) is interwoven into our transportation network systems. Curtailing Medicaid NEMT would have significant negative consequences beyond Medicaid, including reducing the funding and services of local transportation agencies. Local transportation providers depend on NEMT as a steady source of revenue (sometimes more than 50% of total funding) and to leverage federal transit funds used to expand access to rural populations. Without Medicaid NEMT, transit services for all populations – including health care, employment, and other trip purposes – would be lost or substantially curtailed. Please be sure to find the Health Affairs blog posted here, as well as the full report posted here.