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New Jersey may soon collect co-pays from Medicaid recipients

Patient Financial Services Weekly Advisor, April 27, 2007

New Jersey, one of five states that does not require low-income people to pay co-pays for hospital visits, may soon be forced to collect money from Medicaid recipients, reports the Associated Press (AP).

Gov. Jon S. Corzine is proposing that hospitals begin charging co-pays to Medicaid beneficiaries to help raise $12 million toward the state budget.

The proposed co-pays would be $2 for prescriptions, $3 for outpatient hospital visits and medical care, and $6 for nonemergency visits to the ER.

But some legislators oppose the proposal, citing studies that show that poor people are more likely to forgo healthcare than provide co-pays.

"Charging co-pays from a person who has no income for medical care or for prescriptions is a travesty," Kelley Williams of the Anti-Poverty Network of New Jersey told the AP.

The other states that do not ask Medicaid recipients to supply co-pays are Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, and Texas.

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