Warm greetings to you on this icy day!
I’ve been thinking about burnout lately. I keep hearing the same phrases from friends and colleagues: “it’s like drinking from a firehose”; “I’m trying to keep up”; “I’m overwhelmed.” Burnout is mental, emotional, and/or physical exhaustion that comes with decreased motivation, impaired performance and negative attitudes about yourself and others.
This moment is designed to induce burnout; it is a specific strategy employed to weaken and overpower advocates who oppose efforts to cut or eliminate safety-net programs. Recognizing that you’re on the path to burnout is the first step to restoration. There are resources to help you figure out how to recover, recharge, and protect your well-being, including a webinar on navigating stress this Friday for people in the legal profession.
Topics for this week’s Health Announce:
- Urgent -- Sign on letters to protect MassHealth and other benefit programs.
- HCWG meeting next Wednesday, February 26!
- Check out the just-posted 2025 Table on Upper Income Limits for MassHealth and other programs
- New MassHealth website on Medicaid Estate Recovery.
- New Dental Third-Party Administrator.
- Check out the relaunch of MLRI’s Mass Pro Bono website!
Be well,
Jennifer Hotchkiss Kaplan
Senior Health Law Attorney
Massachusetts Law Reform Institute
1. Urgent -- Sign on letters to protect MassHealth and other benefit programs.
Deadline Tomorrow, February 19 for two sign-on letters! 🖊️
Congress is currently considering severe cuts to safety-net programs, including Medicaid, SNAP, and TANF. As part of the budget reconciliation process, both the Senate Budget Committee and the House Budget Committee have advanced budget resolutions. While the resolutions themselves do not propose specific cuts or increases, they do provide instructions to authorizing committees: the Senate committees with health jurisdiction are directed to make cuts totaling at least $1 billion, and the House committee is directed to make $880 billion in cuts. While the budget resolutions do not specifically call out Medicaid, key Congressional leaders have identified Medicaid and other safety-net programs as targets for cuts.
- MLRI has drafted a letter to be sent to our Massachusetts Congressional delegation forcefully opposing cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and TANF and urging them to speak out and protect these critical programs. Please join us and 90+ Massachusetts organizations by signing on to the advocacy letter.
- Health Care for All also has a letter to be sent to members of our congressional delegation urging them to fight against cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. Sign on here.
2. HCWG meeting next Wednesday, February 26!
On Wednesday, February 26, 2025, at 3pm, the Healthcare Work Group (HCWG) meets to the state budget, health-related legislative bills, and collecting stories to defend against cuts to Medicaid at the federal level. If you have any additional topics or issues you’d like to put on the agenda, please let me (jkaplan@mlri.org) know.
3. Check out the just-posted 2025 Table on Upper Income Limits for MassHealth and other programs.
The 2025 Health Programs Upper Income Limits Table showing the monthly and weekly upper income levels for MassHealth has been posted on MassLegalServices.org. The table also provides the upper income limits for Medicare Savings Program (MSP), Health Safety Net, Children’s Medical Security Program (CMSP), and ConnectorCare. MassHealth will being applying these figures as of March 1, 2025, and its Desk Guide should be available soon.
4. New MassHealth website on Medicaid Estate Recovery.
In 2024, after a long campaign, the legislature amended the state Medicaid Estate Recovery law to narrow the scope of recovery to only what is required by federal law.
- The new law applies to the estates of MassHealth members aged 55 and older who died on or after August 1, 2024.
- For people aged 55 or older, estate recovery will now only apply to nursing home residents and people enrolled in one of the 9 adult home and community based services waivers. It does not apply to community-based long term services and supports like PCA services, Adult Day Health, Adult Foster Care, DayHab or DME.
- Estate recovery continues to apply to people who are permanently institutionalized and not expected to return home regardless of their age.
MassHealth explains this on the main page of its Medicaid Estate Recovery website and in its FAQs. But it has not yet updated a fact sheet that is still posted on the website & dated July 2021.
The new law also directed MassHealth to waive estate recovery for CommonHealth. To do this, Massachusetts must obtain a waiver from the federal government. MassHealth has released its proposed request for a waiver for public comment. It held a listening session on February 3 and will be accepting written comments until February 20 at 5 pm. More information is available on the 1115 waiver website.
5. New Dental Third-Party Administrator.
The Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) has contracted with a new dental third-party administrator, BeneCare Dental Plans. As of April 1, 2025, BeneCare will administer the dental benefit for MassHealth, the Children’s Medical Security Plan (CMSP), and the Health Safety Net (HSN). They will be taking over from DentaQuest. FAQs for providers can be found here.
6. Check out the relaunch of MLRI’s Mass Pro Bono website!
Mass Pro Bono is an online resource for lawyers, law students, paralegals, and others who want to give their time to meet the legal needs of vulnerable people in Massachusetts. Developed in the early 2010s by the Volunteer Lawyers Project, today Mass Pro Bono is managed by the Legal Aid Websites Project at Massachusetts Law Reform Institute. The website lists pro bono opportunities that can be filtered by issue area and time commitment, among other criteria. We encourage you to:
