When Old Is New: Medicaid's EPSDT Benefit at Fifty, and the Future of Child Health Policy
2017年，医疗补助的儿童专项福利EPSDT迎来50周年，该福利旨在保障贫困儿童的健康，其立法理由至今仍具现实意义。文章回顾了EPSDT的起源与必要性，强调其对最贫困儿童的重要性。
n 2017, Medicaid's special children's benefit-known as early and periodic screening, diagnosis, and treatment (EPSDT)turns 50. The rationale for the legislation establishing EPSDT as a mandatory benefit for children resonates as strongly today as it did in 1967. Given what we now know about the impact of poverty on health during childhood and beyond, we owe our poorest children and adolescents no less than what EPSDT guarantees. Like adults, children enrolled in Medicaid were entitled to a range of benefits and services necessary to treat acute and long-term health conditions. Preventive services were an optional benefit category that states could cover if they chose. However, because of a basic Medicaid requirement that similarly situated beneficiaries be treated similarly, any state that tried to add more benefits for children likely would have been barred from doing so.