FILE – U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., speaks before President Joe Biden about his infrastructure agenda while announcing funding to upgrade Philadelphia’s water facilities and replace lead pipes, Feb. 3, 2023, at Belmont Water Treatment Center in Philadelphia. Casey’s campaign said Wednesday, July 5, that he raised over $4 million in the last three months, his best fundraising quarter ever as he awaits a Republican challenger to his re-election bid in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, introduced the Helping States Integrate Medicare and Medicaid Act. The bill would provide substantial new funding to states to help the more than 9 million Americans who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid. Due largely to insufficient funding for states, at present only 12 percent of seniors and people with disabilities who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid are actually enrolled in programs that align their coverage, forcing millions of low-income seniors and people with disabilities to navigate two separate, complex systems on their own.

“So many older adults and people with disabilities face fragmented systems and roadblocks that prevent them from accessing the support they need,” said Chairman Casey. “This bill will help Americans who are dually eligible for Medicaid and Medicare navigate those programs and get the health care they deserve.”

The Helping States Integrate Medicare and Medicaid Act would provide $300 million to states and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to develop and advance integrated programs. The bill would also increase the federal match that states receive to 80 percent for administrative activities to support the implementation and advancement of these integration strategies and to finance the initial costs of building an infrastructure that is reflective of the needs and preferences of the local Medicare-Medicaid population.

Chairman Casey has long led efforts in Congress to help older Americans and people with disabilities more easily access the care they need. In May 2023, Casey introduced the Beneficiary Notification Eligibility Simplification 2.0 Act, which would simplify Medicare enrollment by require the federal government to provide advance notice to people approaching Medicare eligibility about basic enrollment rules. Earlier in 2023, he introduced the Medicare and Medicaid Dental, Vision, and Hearing Benefit Act, which would allow Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing services and increase the federal investment in Medicaid, incentivizing more states to provide these comprehensive services.