Starting in 2024, the initiative will help pay for things like air conditioners and air filters for Medicaid members with health conditions
A pedestrian carries a box fan during a heatwave in Portland, Oregon, on June 26, 2021. Record heat across the Pacific Northwest, strained regional power, water supplies, and dragged down air quality. — Oregon is set to become the first state in the nation to cover climate change expenses for certain low-income patients under its Medicaid program as the normally temperate Pacific Northwest region sees longer heat waves and more intense wildfires.
Oregon will receive $1.1 billion in new federal funding for the new Medicaid initiatives covering climate change, nutrition and housing, described as “health-related social needs” by health officials. The state will pilot the changes over the next five years. Officials in the Pacific Northwest have been trying to adjust to the likely reality of more intense heat spells following the region’s fatal “heat dome” weather phenomenon that prompted record temperatures and deaths in the summer of 2021.
Oregon Medicaid members with health conditions will become eligible for such devices if they live in an area where an emergency due to extreme weather has been declared.