The Alabama House Ways and Means General Fund Committee passed HB177 on Wednesday following a brief public hearing.
Sponsored by state Rep. Ben Robbins, R-District 33, HB177 looks to enforce current law which mandates that children approved for Medicaid must first be covered by a parent’s private health insurance if able. Specifically, the law would give Alabama judges the power to mandate that a child currently covered by Medicaid be added to a parent’s employer-provided private health insurance instead.
As of December 2024, nearly 600,000 children are eligible for Medicaid in Alabama, according to the Alabama Medicaid Agency.
Robbins explained to the committee that the bill is specifically intended for instances where a non-custodial parent has employer-provided insurance that is not covering their child. This would give a judge the power to require that non-custodial parent to add the child to their insurance plan in accordance with current law and in addition to any existing child support payments.
“If a noncustodial parent is under an order to pay child support, the court may also order that the child be included on the parent’s employer-provided health care insurance or order the parent to purchase coverage for the child,” the bill reads.
Additionally, the legislation creates a penalty for parents who fail to include a child approved for Medicaid on their available private health care coverage, reading, “If a parent fails to include a child approved for Medicaid on available health care coverage provided by an employer or as otherwise ordered by a court, this bill would authorize the Medicaid agency to recover any health care payments made for the child by a civil suit against the parent.”
Robbins also explained that children who fall under the provisions of the bill will still be covered by Medicaid if need be.
“We’re never going to put a child in a situation where they’re not covered,” Robbins said. “And if Dad doesn’t do what he’s supposed to do… we want Medicaid to then be able to basically subrogate, which means go against Dad and say ‘we had to spend $100,000 when you were supposed to do this, give us $100,000, Dad.’”
“That’s the ultimate goal of the bill: to incentivize non-custodial parents that can afford it, to take the responsibility they should take, and have the state have the mechanism to get their money back,” he continued.
The committee held a brief public hearing on the bill, during which Robyn Hyden, the Executive Director of Alabama Arise, expressed concerns about some potential unintended consequences the bill may have.
“I believe that based on the way it is drafted — I’ve sent it to five different national experts who work on health law, Medicaid policy — they had different interpretations of what it would do,” Hyden said. “So, I think a worst case scenario reading of this bill is that it would not just impact child support, it would impact all parents, which I know the sponsor said is not the intent of this bill.”
Hyden argued that the bill could unintentionally impact single parents who could technically opt-in for employer-provided health insurance, but who would lose a substantial amount of their paycheck in doing so.
“I would simply ask that we make sure that this bill does not cause tens of thousands of Alabama kids to lose their health insurance, and we would have questions about how it would be enforced,” Hyden concluded.
Following Hyden’s comments, Rep. Robbins made a commitment to the committee that he would work with Alabama Arise on the legislation moving forward to help address their concerns.
Rep. Kerry Underwood, R-District 3, also offered an amendment to the bill that tweaked one line of the bill to avoid potential conflict with federal law and removed repetitive language.
The committee approved Underwood’s amendment before ultimately passing HB177 in full.
