Your Savings and Your Health

Your Savings and Your Health is a coordinated campaign to reform the approach to asset limitations in Medicaid in three states: New York, California, and Washington. Research by the Corporation for Enterprise Development indicates that owning assets helps reduce divorce, promote physical and mental health, education, and economic stability, and decreases intergenerational poverty. Nonetheless, in 1996 when Congress made it possible for states to eliminate barriers to Medicaid enrollment, only 14 states and the District of Columbia elected to eliminate asset limitations. In New York, California, Washington and 33 other states, asset limitations continue to act as a barrier to Medicaid for otherwise eligible low-income families and children.