June 9, 2017 Kelly Whitener , Tricia Brooks Fifty years ago, after learning that half the young men drafted for the Vietnam War failed baseline health exams, the federal government instituted Medicaid’s comprehensive, pediatrician-recommended benefit standard for children known as Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment (EPSDT). The federal benefit standard in Medicaid ensures that low-income and vulnerable children receive the health care services they need to grow and thrive. But this standard is at risk. Proposed cuts to Medicaid and CHIP funding could make EPSDT unaffordable to states. In turn, proposed changes to federal policy, including legislative and administrative action, could potentially give states the option to eliminate the standard except as it applies to children with disabilities. In our new EPSDT brief , we explain why such a move would be shortsighted as children with serious disabilities make up only a small share of childre
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