HARTFORD, CT – Legislative leaders and health professionals announced Monday morning a new legislative proposal to help families on Medicaid afford the soaring costs of diapers.
“Tomorrow in the Human Services Committee, we intend to raise a concept that would extend Medicaid coverage of diapers to children from birth to age three with certain health conditions,” said Rep. Jillian Gilchrest, D-West Hartford, co-chair of the committee. “This is a targeted policy intervention that will make diapers readily available to families with children who have a medical necessity and who experience other barriers to accessing this essential resource.”
Gilchrest said that the Medicaid expansion is an opportunity to improve health outcomes for mothers and children. She said that 40% of all UTI hospitalizations in the state are for children under the age of one, a statistic Gilchrest called “shocking.”
“This proposal – not only will it improve health outcomes for children and their caregivers, it’s also good fiscal policy,” Gilchrest said. “In 2018, the Diaper Bank of Connecticut and the University of Connecticut did an economic modeling study. And in that study, they found that the incidence of diaper rash declined by 33% when families received a supply of clean diapers. And that babies experienced 77% fewer days of diaper rash.
“So given that this proposed coverage of Medicaid for medical necessity for children is targeted to those for whom, like I said, coverage is medically necessary, it’s likely that the savings associated with the reduced avoidable use of healthcare services will offset the cost of the coverage.”
Janet Stolfi Alfano, chief executive officer of The Diaper Bank of Connecticut, said that diaper prices have increased by 22% since 2018.
“Before the pandemic, one in three families experienced diaper need. Now it’s one in two,” she said. “Families need diapers to bring their child to childcare. About half of the parents using childcare have missed up to four days of work per month because they didn’t have an adequate supply. That equates to about a $6,000 amount of lost wages based on Connecticut minimum wages.”
The Diaper Bank of Connecticut is one of the largest diaper banks in the country, serving more than 6,000 children each month. Families receive a month’s supply of diapers through the service.
Dr. Marlo Greponne, executive director of the Human Resources Agency of New Britain, said that not only are diapers critically important for the health of infants, but that expanding Medicaid to cover more families and connecting them with the Diaper Bank could have other benefits as well.
“[Working with the Diaper Bank] offered us the opportunity to really understand the impact of integrating the distribution of diapers with the support services that we are so adept at wrapping around the needs of the families,” she said. “We never realized that something as simple as diapers could really help to ensure that families understand what additional resources are out there for them. They build a relationship with us, so that when they do have those needs, we are a trusted source that they can come to and request those services.”
Rep. Aundre Bumgardner, D-Groton, stressed the economic benefits of expanding Medicaid to cover diapers for infants.
“[Access to diapers] determines the financial success of the family,” he said. “As the good chair from the Human Services Committee indicated, when a child experiences very poor health outcomes as a result of a UTI or a rash, that means a parent is no longer in a position to work. They have to be at home to care for the child and go to doctor’s appointments, and that is bad for the economy. So again, this bill is pro-economy, it is pro-family and is simply the right thing to do for our youngsters.”