‘Food As Medicine’: Medicaid Funds Used to Fight Food Insecurity
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Here's your Money Briefing for Friday, February 17th. I'm J.R. Whelan for The Wall Street Journal. We often hear the term food insecurity, not having access to sufficient food or enough food to meet basic needs. Food insecurity now affects 15% of U.S. households, and as a result, some states are allowing residents to purchase groceries through their Medicaid program.
There can be an impact on health and savings by reducing the medical visits or the need for medication or helping to control serious illnesses by using food to help with conditions.
So how does it work? We'll talk to Wall Street Journal reporter Stephanie Armour about the program that some call Food as Medicine. That's after the break.
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What is ‘Food as Medicine’ and why is Medicaid being used to address food insecurity?
Nearly 20% of U.S. households with children didn't have access to sufficient food during the pandemic. To address that, the Biden administration has approved requests from several states to use Medicaid to pay for things like groceries, but also nutritional counseling to help families maintain good health. Wall Street Journal reporter Stephanie Armour wrote about the program, and she joins me with more. Hey, Stephanie, thanks very much for being with us.
Sure, thanks for having me.
So, Stephanie, how does this work? Does the money for food come from people's existing monthly Medicaid allotments?
No, this is actually something that the Biden administration has approved for a number of states now, specifically for their Medicaid programs, which are programs that generally help cover health coverage for people who are lower income or disabled. And how this works is that basically it allows the state to use its Medicaid funds, which are a combination of state and federal funding, to in some cases purchase food or nutritional counseling for certain at-risk people in the Medicaid program.
Oh, so the state does the purchasing and not the consumer?
Generally. In some cases, the state may refer someone to a related program that provides some of the food and produce. In other cases, the state may pay and have what they call medically tailored meals delivered to someone's home if they're a Medicaid enrollee for benefits. say, six months. So it varies in terms of how it works. Each state has kind of their own system that they've set up for this. But by and large, the way it works is that this is taxpayer funds that are used to purchase food on behalf of beneficiaries who are seen at risk of not having enough food or having illnesses that could be affected by not having good, healthy food.
So what generally falls under the category of what the program can buy for people?
Well, this program is part of broader changes that the states are doing in Medicaid to address what they call social determinants of health that are things that are beyond sort of the traditional doctor's office that affect people's health. For example, in some states that have people who are vulnerable to high heat, they may be able to get an air conditioner, for example.
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