SAN MARCOS —
Community Action Inc. of Central Texas (CAI) recently received a $1 million grant from St. David’s Foundation that will be geared toward improving access to healthcare. In May, St. David’s Foundation launched the “We All Benefit” funding opportunity focused on increasing access to quality, responsive care by supporting organizations or collaboratives currently enrolling eligible Central Texans in health insurance benefits — Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Affordable Care Act (ACA) for example — and supporting individuals, the community and organizations in the eligibility determination and enrollment process through outreach, education or training. A total of $7.4 million in funding was awarded through 16 grants. These investments, supporting enrollment efforts at nearly 100 sites, will allow organizations to scale operations and services to immediately reach high-need populations, according to the foundation. On Sept. 24, the St. David’s Foundation announced that CAI was a recipient of a $1 million award from the We All Benefit call for proposals. Beginning on Oct. 1, the two-year grant will focus on enrolling/re-enrolling eligible Central Texans in Medicaid and other government health insurance options. “This grant award is going to make a meaningful impact on the work we do in Hays and other Central Texas counties. Having access to healthcare is a vital part of developing healthy and successful families, academic success in school, maintaining employment and raising families out of poverty,” said CAI Executive Director Doug Mudd in a news release. “We are very excited to be partnering with several local nonprofit organizations to disseminate information about the assistance these grant funds will provide. We hope to become the center of these efforts to help eligible Texans access the services they are entitled to.” Within the last two years, more than 2.1 million Texans — with nearly half being children — have been disenrolled from Medicaid, even though many of them are eligible for coverage, according to CAI. This lack of coverage has led to many low-income families missing important medical appointments, as well as creating financial burdens on healthcare providers, hospital systems and more by having to provide uncompensated care for these now uninsured patients. It is the goal of CAI’s project, which is internally titled Accessing Healthcare in Central Texas, to reach as many eligible citizens as possible and help them enroll in Medicaid and other publicly-supported health insurance programs and provide case management to shepherd their applications through an often-confusing system. “St. David’s is very alarmed by how many people are being dismissed from Medicaid. So, what they’re doing is funding organizations like ours to go out and basically re-enroll or enroll people in Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program or if they qualify for Obamacare (ACA), but the primary focus is on Medicaid. The way we got to this point is during COVID, they let people’s Medicaid eligibility stand for one year. Normally, you have to reapply after six months, [but] because of COVID and all of the problems with that, they let everybody stay for a year, and then after a year, people forgot to re-enroll,” explained David Wiley, project manager and health services consultant for CAI. “Plus, the state’s system is really messed up. They are denying coverage to people who are clearly eligible. We spend a lot of time trying to find out why somebody was denied Medicaid when they’ve been on Medicaid for years and all of a sudden, they’re ineligible when they shouldn’t be.” The grant that CAI received is for two years. According to Wiley, between now and the end of September 2026, they are dedicated to intensely go out and sign up people for Medicaid who need it. “This is a direct service to citizens. We’re going to go out and find people and recruit them to fill out the paperwork — and, obviously, determine eligibility first. For people that don’t qualify for Medicaid, they might qualify for some level of Obamacare (ACA) and we’re going to navigate that for them as well,” Wiley said. “The primary purpose is Medicaid. This is not to enroll people who are not eligible.”