The American Rescue Plan (ARP) offers states a 10 percentage point enhancement in their Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) for Medicaid home and community-based services (HCBS) provided during the year from April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022. States must use the resulting state share savings to “enhance, expand, or strengthen” Medicaid HCBS. Funds may be spent on a wide variety of activities that are compliant with these requirements. States that reinvest the funds in the provision of Medicaid HCBS services may also use them as state share to receive additional federal matching funds.
States are required to submit initial spending plans for this funding by July 12th (if they requested a 30-day extension, as many states, including New York, have). Some states have already published draft versions of their submissions, with varying levels of detail as to their spending allocations. These plans may be modified or elaborated on in future submissions.
In the attached resource, SPG has collected line-item data on proposed spending, to the extent available, from four such states (California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Washington). This is intended as a reference document that offers an idea of the types of HCBS programs and initiatives that states have proposed funding, the spending mechanisms used, and a rough breakdown by service/population area. We will distribute a similar document focused on New York once its plan is publicly available.