States and Health Insurance Programs

Posted on September 21, 2011 by townsend

• States, unhappy with health-care overhaul, look to form compact, By Guy Gugliotta, September 19, 2011, Boston Globe: “State governors and legislators opposed to the federal health-care law are considering a novel approach to escape its provisions: joining an ‘interstate compact’ that would replace federal programs – including Medicare and Medicaid – with block grants to the states. To date, legislation has been drafted or introduced in 14 states and brought to the floor by lawmakers in at least nine. Three Republican governors – in Georgia, Oklahoma, and Texas – have signed the compact into law, while Governor Jay Nixon of Missouri, a Democrat, let the compact become law without signing it. Supporters say they hope to get 40 states to put it on the legislative calendar in 2012. If a significant number of states pass the compact, supporters plan to submit it to Congress for approval in the same way that the body approves interstate compacts regulating commerce, transportation, and resource conservation and development…”
• Study looks at who remains uninsured in Mass., By Chelsea Conaboy, September 19, 2011, Boston Globe: “Much of the discussion around the 2006 Massachusetts health law has focused on how far the state has come in providing coverage for the uninsured. Dr. Rachel Nardin, a neurologist at Cambridge Health Alliance and chair of the Massachusetts chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, said sometimes it is important to take a different look — to look at the glass as half empty and ask, why? She and others at the Harvard-affiliated health system published a study online with the Journal of General Internal Medicine last week looking at why people remain uninsured in Massachusetts despite a law mandating that most residents have health insurance…”
• Pa. considering shift in Medicaid payments to help cut rising expenses, September 21, 2011, By Phil Galewitz, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Pennsylvania is considering paying Medicaid recipients as much as $200 as an incentive to visit higher-quality and lower-cost hospitals and doctors. Experts say the strategy has never been tried by other states. Gary Alexander, the state’s secretary of public welfare, said his agency hoped to launch the plan by early next year to help control rising expenses in the $30 billion Medicaid program…”