MW Apple Health, MassHealth, Cardinal Care? You may be on Medicaid and not even know it.

By Brett Arends

How many people who are watching the current budget battle over Medicaid don't even realize they're on Medicaid?

How many people who are watching the current budget battle over Medicaid don't even realize they're on Medicaid?

It sounds crazy, but it isn't. "Medicaid," the health-insurance safety net for those on low incomes and some others, is a partnership between the federal government and state governments. As the states have a lot of control, many of them have changed the name of the program in their state.

Read: Senate passes Trump's big bill. Here's where things stand on Medicaid and taxes as it goes to the House

If you're in California and you're on Medi-Cal, and you think this Medicaid fight in D.C. has nothing to do with you, think again: Medi-Cal is Medicaid.

If you're in Massachusetts, it's called MassHealth. In Indiana, it's Hoosier Care Connect. In Wisconsin, naturally, it's BadgerCare (excuse me - it's "BadgerCare Plus").

A colleague knows people in Connecticut who insist they're not on Medicaid - they're on "Husky Health." Hmmm ... who wants to tell them?

The map above gives you a decent guide, but even that's not the whole story. A complete map would be unreadable. Some states distribute Medicaid through a variety of third-party organizations, including for-profit insurance companies, and offer "managed plans" with different names. They're still Medicaid.

The picture is so confusing that even the government doesn't always know what's going on. Uncle Sam tells me the Medicaid program in Virginia is called Medicaid - but this must come as news to the Commonwealth of Virginia, whose own website says it's called Cardinal Care. Given the complexity of the system, they could both be right.

Medicaid is a far bigger and more important program than many people - especially many middle-class people - realize. It isn't "just" for those on low incomes and those with disabilities. It is also the main payer of long-term care - for everyone. That includes home healthcare and nursing homes. Huge numbers of middle-class Americans persist in the belief that Medicare will pay for their nursing-home care or home healthcare near the end of their lives. (A new survey from insurance company Nationwide is just the latest to illustrate the scale of this delusion.)

It won't. Medicare pays for skilled nursing-facility stays only in very specific circumstances - such as when recuperating from a major operation - and only for short periods. If you need round-the-clock care when you are very old, it will be paid for by Medicaid, not Medicare. Or you can rustle up the $120,000 a year you'll need to pay for this stuff yourself.

It's possible that some states renamed their Medicaid programs to save recipients from any sense of embarrassment - "stigma," in the parlance - from using the program. Where this is the case, liberals may be hoist with their own petard. To pay for tax cuts, Congress and the president are about to cut more than $100 billion a year from programs that include MassHealth, Medi-Cal, Apple Health, Maine Health and the like. But recipients may not have a clue until it's too late.

-Brett Arends

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July 01, 2025 15:37 ET (19:37 GMT)

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