Скачать или смотреть Medicaid Myths, Keeping CT Families Healthy

Recognizing and addressing social determinants of health can have a great impact on our overall well-being. That also goes for the people who are responsible for the care of others, be it their children or an aging or sick relative. Connecticut has a number of services and programs available to help, and Department of Social Services Commissioner Andrea Barton Reeves joins Dr. Alessi to explain them, clear up misconceptions around some of these programs, and discuss some of the challenges around social services in 2026.



Commissioner Barton Reeves recently joined the UConn Heath Board of Directors.



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DSS Commissioner Andrea Barton Reeves:

https://portal.ct.gov/dss/knowledge-b...



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Support from UConn Health Orthopedics and Sports Medicine:

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Grant support from Coverys:

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Transcript


Dr. Alessi: Welcome to the Healthy Rounds Podcast, where we provide up to date, medical and timely information from national and international leaders in their fields. This podcast is brought to you by UConn Health, with support from the Department of Orthopedic Surgery and a grant from Coverys. It is not designed to direct your healthcare, which should only be done by your physician.



I’m your host, Dr. Anthony Alessi, and it gives me a great pleasure to have as my guest today, Commissioner Andrea Barton Reeves. Commissioner Reeves is the commissioner for the Department of Social Services here in Connecticut. She’s also a recently appointed member of the Board of Directors of UConn Health.



Welcome to the podcast.



Commissioner Barton Reeves: Thank you for having me.



Dr. Alessi: Let’s start out. You’re an attorney. What drew you to your career in advocacy?



Commissioner Barton Reeves: I would say that my parents were always, they were people that were very clear that we owed more to our community than just being three privileged children. So my father was a physician, he was a board certified child and adolescent psychiatrist, and my mother was a nurse.



She held a master’s degree and she taught at Columbia and worked at a large hospital in New York. But they were immigrants. They came really with nothing and worked very hard to get their own educations and to educate my brothers and I. But in the course of that, they made it clear that they actually had careers and, you know, in the medical profession that gave back to people.



And because so many people had made their lives and the success in their lives possible, that we had a responsibility to do that as well. So I think it’s been ingrained from the time I was very young. It’s my nature and all my brothers and I, we all are in similar fields in the helping professions and do very similar work.



Dr. Alessi: What a great legacy for your parents. You might be wondering why I’m having you on. Most of our guests have been physicians, but I wanna let you know that I firmly believe that the key to better health starts with the social situation of patients, whether they’re homeless, whether they have enough to eat, and now we’re hearing a new term, right? The social determinants of health.



Commissioner Barton Reeves: That’s right.



Dr. Alessi: And with that here in the state of Connecticut, we have a Medicaid program. Can you talk a little bit about the program and somewhat profile the people who are on it because there’s so much misinformation and disinformation out there. I read a recent opinion piece where they touted the fact that the people on Medicaid are here illegally, they are undocumented people.



And I know that for a fact that that is not the case. So can you really talk to us a little bit about who are the people on Medicaid in Connecticut? Are they working? Who are these people?



Commissioner Barton Reeves: Sure. And thank you for this opportunity because there is so much disinformation and really I think negative stereotyping of people who are on Medicaid. People who are on Medicaid can be individuals or families. And your eligibility for Medicaid depends on what percentage of your income places you at or below the federal poverty level.



And it’s a large, complex calculation with lots of charts and we won’t go into that, but in this state, over a million people are on Medicaid. What people also don’t understand is Medicaid is complex in the sense that it’s not just an individual or collective insurance policy for working adults or for children.



Medicaid dollars also pay for care in hospitals, and they pay for long-term services and supports with people who are at home. And Medicaid dollars also pay for federally qualified health centers and places where people get lots of care, and I don’t think people really understand that, ...