- Optional Medicaid benefits face state cuts, By Phil Galewitz, October 23, 2011, USA Today: “States are using a variety of strategies to control rising Medicaid costs even as they look ahead to a massive expansion of the state-federal health insurance program for the poor beginning in 2014. The weak economy is driving more jobless Americans into Medicaid, increasing enrollment at the same time that medical costs keep going up. To deal with the higher costs, states are pushing Medicaid recipients into managed-care plans run by private insurers, cutting reimbursement rates to hospitals and doctors and reducing benefits…”
- More states limiting Medicaid hospital stays, By Phil Galewitz, October 23, 2011, USA Today: “A growing number of states are sharply limiting hospital stays under Medicaid to as few as 10 days a year to control rising costs of the health insurance program for the poor and disabled. Advocates for the needy and hospital executives say the moves will restrict access to care, force hospitals to absorb more costs and lead to higher charges for privately insured patients. States defend the actions as a way to balance budgets hammered by the economic downturn and the end of billions of dollars in federal stimulus funds this summer that had helped prop up Medicaid, financed jointly by states and the federal government…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty