The Effect of Medicaid Access during the Transition from Prison to Community

• In Event: Health Care Access and Reentry Outcomes: Findings from Connecticut and Oregon

Abstract

Until recently, the legal status of an individual transitioning to a Connecticut halfway house after incarceration had major implications for his or her access to Medicaid coverage and healthcare. Residents released under a “community release” status were technically still legally incarcerated and therefore ineligible for federally-funded Medicaid. These residents had to return to jail clinics to access any health services. In 2014, Connecticut pilot tested a program to enroll “community release” residents into state-funded Medicaid-like coverage. This paper presents preliminary results on the effect of access to Medicaid coverage on recidivism by comparing re-incarceration rates of those who participated in the pilot program with those who were released to halfway houses a year earlier, and thus did not have access to Medicaid coverage. Findings will provide insights into whether a policy change allowing halfway house residents to access Medicaid coverage impacts recidivism outcomes. Future work will assess whether Medicaid coverage improves treatment continuity from prison to community, as well as how health care utilization affects recidivism.

Authors

• Emily Tiry, The Urban Institute

• Kamala Mallik-Kane, Urban Institute

• Akiva Liberman, Urban Institute