Home Grown is grateful for the opportunity to provide comments in response to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) entitled “Community Engagement Requirement Interim Final Rule.”
Home-based child care (HBCC) providers play a critical role in caring for children and supporting families and communities across the country, yet they are also among the lowest-paid workers and often rely on public health insurance programs like Medicaid to access health care. While many home-based child care providers will likely be exempt from the rule, Home Grown is concerned that administrative and compliance requirements will mean some HBCC providers may lose health care coverage. Our recommendations urge CMS to ensure that administrative requirements can be easily met by home-based child care providers to prevent them from losing health care coverage.
