- FSSA: Indiana Medicaid costs to grow under health law, By Eric Bradner, September 18, 2012, Evansville Courier and Press: “Even if Indiana policymakers opt to turn down the Medicaid expansion envisioned in the federal health care law, the program’s enrollment is expected to grow in the coming years. It’s because of a ‘woodwork effect’ that the actuary for Indiana’s Family and Social Services Administration is projecting. It means that due to the law’s individual mandate that all Americans have health insurance, those who are eligible for Medicaid but aren’t currently signed up will, as the expression goes, come out of the woodwork. The cost of such an effect, with up to 123,000 Hoosiers potentially becoming part of it, would be about $600 million over a seven-year period, according to a new round of estimates that the actuary, Milliman, Inc., provided Tuesday…”
- Utah doctors give qualified nod to Medicaid expansion, By Kirsten Stewart, September 17, 2012, Salt Lake Tribune: “Utah doctors support expanding Medicaid but with a few caveats. After hours of contentious debate Saturday over a provision in federal health reform that would expand the health safety net to cover more of the nation’s poor, the Utah Medical Association’s (UMA) House of Delegates approved this carefully parsed statement: ‘When health care reform measures are under consideration by the governor and Legislature, the UMA will support such measures as will improve our patients’ access to care, including the expansion of Medicaid coverage if that is the best way to provide coverage to all Utahns.’ It seems a tepid endorsement for a policy that would insure a third of the state’s uninsured, about 105,000 people. But advocates for the expansion, such as Ray Ward, a family physician in Bountiful, say it’s the best they could hope for given the circumstances…”
- Hospitals may lose money if Medicaid not expanded, Associated Press, September 17, 2012, Kearney Hub: “The University of Nebraska Medical Center’s two hospitals in Omaha stand to lose millions of dollars in federal aid under the new federal health care law unless the state expands Medicaid coverage, and administrators said those cuts could mean problems for academic programs that rely on the hospitals for revenue. Â Administrators said the law will eliminate federal payments to the Nebraska Medical Center and the Children’s Hospital and Medical Center. Both qualify for special aid because they serve as safety-net hospitals for patients who are on Medicaid or uninsured, said Cory Shaw, the chief executive officer of UNMC Physicians. Medicaid is a federal health program administered by states covers low-income adults and children as well as people with certain disabilities…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty