NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE
A
s SARS-CoV-2 spread through the U.S. in March 2020, congressional leaders passed several bills to provide relief to Americans experiencing financial hardship. The trillions of dollars in new spending included the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), a $192 billion package intended to strengthen social-safety-net programs during the pandemic. Under the FFCRA, the federal government increased its share of Medicaid spending, known as the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP), by 6.2 percent. This grew Medicaid substantially, allowing greater numbers of Americans to receive government-sponsored health-care coverage under the program.
The FFCRA’s implementation has been predictably fraught with problems. Millions of newly …