Medicaid residents sue Tennessee on Medicaid enrollment delays

The suit claims that the state's decision to require residents to apply through the health law marketplace slowed down enrollment. In other Medicaid news, The Associated Press examines problems in Oregon caused by the rush of enrollment.

Modern Healthcare: Suit Alleges Tennessee Put Medicaid Applicants in Limbo by Steering Them to HealthCare.Gov
Tennessee residents who faced lengthy delays when they applied for Medicaid are now suing the state for failing to process their applications in a timely manner. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Nashville, claims that the backlog developed when the state began requiring residents to apply for the TennCare program through the federal health insurance marketplace HealthCare.gov, which was not designed to process Medicaid applications (Kutscher, 7/23).

Kaiser Health News: Groups Sue Tennessee Over Medicaid Enrollment Delays
The suit was filed several weeks after the Obama administration ordered Tennessee and several other states to resolve problems that have led to a backlog nationwide of more than 1 million applications for Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for the poor (Galewitz, 7/23).

The Associated Press: Medicaid Enrollees Strain Oregon
Low-income Oregon residents were supposed to be big winners after the state expanded Medicaid under the federal health care overhaul and created a new system to improve the care they received. But an Associated Press review shows that an unexpected rush of enrollees has strained the capacity of the revamped network that was endorsed as a potential national model, locking out some patients, forcing others to wait months for medical appointments and prompting a spike in emergency room visits, which state officials had been actively seeking to avoid (7/23).