Between a federal program for low-income Americans and state insurance for public employees, hundreds of thousands of West Virginians have their health insurance impacted by state lawmakers.
And this year, lawmakers have once again proposed bills to make two types of services more affordable for these state residents.
One is a bill that would double the annual amount Medicaid would pay for dental care. The other would require both Medicaid and the Public Employees Insurance Agency to pay for doulas, professionals who help expecting parents give birth safely and smoothly.
Both potential policies could improve health care access for nearly half of all West Virginians and ultimately save the state money. Currently, the Medicaid dental coverage is insufficient for many West Virginians, and neither insurance covers doula care.
Doulas, in particular, could be an important part of addressing the state’s racial inequalities related to childbirth; research suggests giving birth is much safer for Black parents and their babies when they can use these health professionals.
But lawmakers have introduced similar pieces of legislation before, and they have gotten little traction. In 2022, a version of the Medicaid dental expansion bill wasn’t even heard by a committee. A year later, a similar proposal passed the Senate Health Committee but wasn’t taken up by the Finance Committee. A bill last year that would have reimbursed Medicaid patients for doula care met a similar fate, also dying in the Senate Finance Committee.
Meanwhile, PEIA significantly raised its annual costs, creating even more out-of-pocket expenses for those on the insurance plan.
This year, it might be even more difficult to enact these proposals, as tax cuts passed by last year’s Legislature are expected to decrease the state’s budget for projects like these significantly.
The lead sponsors of the dental and doula bills — Senators Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, and Laura Chapman, R-Ohio, respectively — both expressed hope.
“The fact that there’s not a lot of movement on those things now doesn’t necessarily mean anything good or bad,” Takubo said. “It just means we’ve got to use that as one piece of the puzzle to fix the final budget at the end.”
Chapman said that, in the long run, doula coverage is likely to reduce overall health care costs and put more money back into West Virginia.
But she acknowledged that any bill that costs the state money on the front end will have a hard time in this Legislature.
“I’m hopeful,” Chapman said. “I can’t predict the future, but I’m hopeful.”
But some lawmakers have indicated they’d like to move in the opposite direction. In a Monday budget hearing, Senate Finance Chair Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, indicated he was wary of increasing benefits.
When Mountain State Spotlight tried to ask Tarr a question about whether the two bills would be heard in the Senate Finance Committee, he walked away.
