Using the words “disgraceful” and “atrocious” to describe long delays in the TennCare application process, three legal advocacy groups say they hope a federal class-action lawsuit filed against the state agency will put more pressure on state officials to overhaul the system.
Announcing the lawsuit on Wednesday, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the National Health Law Program and the Tennessee Justice Center said the state has broken federal law and “broken a decades-old promise to its most vulnerable residents” by using a new enrollment system that created delays in coverage as long as six months for newborns, pregnant women and the elderly.
The lawsuit against TennCare is the first of its kind filed against a state for how it has handled its Medicaid enrollment since the Affordable Care Act went into effect, said Jane Perkins, legal director at the National Health Law Program.
But Perkins said Tennessee “is among the worst, if not the worst, offenders” among states in its failure to connect eligible applicants with coverage, and a “national outlier” in how it sends applicants to apply for TennCare programs solely through Healthcare.gov – which was never designed or intended to screen for such a wide array of Medicaid programs, experts have said.
“The delays that are underway are atrocious,” she said.