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Proposed Medical Child Support Regulations |
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From Center for Law and Social Policy: This publication describes new proposed federal regulations relating to medical support enforcement and suggests issues on which interested people may wish to comment. Children in single parent families often obtain such coverage through job-related health insurance available to their custodial parent. If such coverage is not available, their non-custodial parent may provide coverage pursuant to a court or administrative medical support order. In cases where the state child support (IVD) agency establishes or enforces the order, the noncustodial parent may be required to provide such coverage if it is available at "reasonable cost"---i.e. If the non-custodial parent is required to provide coverage, the cost may be quite high, as, despite the federal regulations, employment related coverage may not be reasonable in cost. While some states have access to highly automated health insurance data bases, which can be easily matched with existing orders to discover available coverage, many states do not yet have this capacity. Under these proposed regulations, the state child support agency would be required to inform the Medicaid agency whenever a new or modified medical support order is entered for a child who has applied for or receives Medicaid. Proposed 45 CFR §303.32 amends the National Medical Support Notice (NMSN) to include a provision telling employers what to do if the combined withholding on one or more orders exceeds the amount that can be withheld under the CCPA limits for that employee. In cases in which the child has medical needs that make health care coverage even more important than cash support, the court/administrative agency entering or modifying the order can provide for a different scheme (i.e. health insurance premiums come first), and the employer would be informed of this.
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