Kentucky expanding Medicaid to cover vision, dental and hearing care

About 900,000 Kentuckians will gain Medicaid coverage for their vision, dental, and/or hearing care, Gov. Andy Beshear announced on Thursday.

The expansion of Medicaid, a program administered by federal and state governments to help people with limited income and resources get healthcare, to those aspects of care applies to individuals making less than $18,700 or families of four making less than $38,000 total. Hearing, vision and dental care is already provided to children on Medicaid in the state.

Beshear pitched the expansion as both a way to improve the overall health of Kentuckians that also works as a boon to the state’s workforce.

“Today’s announcement is focused on improving health to get people back in the workforce by removing the roadblocks for many Kentuckians in accessing dental, vision and hearing care. We know that when people cannot see or hear well, or have poor oral health, it hinders their ability to seek and maintain a job,” Beshear said.

Workers need to be able to hear instructions on worksites and be able to see well enough to drive to work, he said. Lack of dental care, he said, can lead to drug addiction and cause people to miss work.

Ben Chandler, former Central Kentucky Democratic congressman and current president and chief executive officer of the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky, agreed.

“Maybe the most important social driver of all is to have a job, to be able to be employed, to be able to make a living for your family and to get your family in a healthy economic position,” Chandler said. “All of the data shows that when you work, you have a much better chance of having good health. You have to be able to have good health to work and you have to be able to work to have good health.”

He added that the expansion will “have no significant impact” on the state budget, as much of it is being funded by the U.S. government.

“The vast majority of this program will be paid by the federal government. The rest of it can be absorbed in our Medicaid budget, which is healthy, it will have no significant impact on Kentucky’s budget and will require no changes to our budgets in this next session,” Beshear said. “In other words, it is easily affordable, which means we absolutely should do it.”

On the workforce issue, the governor took a jab at a policy heralded by much of the GOP-controlled legislature this session which cut unemployment benefits in the state. Legislators, as well as the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, said that the bill would go a long way toward increasing Kentucky’s workforce.

“With such low unemployment, our focus can’t be there, as our people aren’t out of the workforce because of unemployment benefits. So we have to look at what has some people out of the workforce altogether. It is straightforward – to get more people into the workforce, we must get them healthy enough.”

Medicaid members will be able to access the benefits starting Jan. 1, 2023.