States and Medicaid Costs

Posted on February 3, 2011 by townsend

• Obama administration looking to help states cut Medicaid costs, By Noam N. Levey, February 3, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “Facing a brewing revolt among states wrestling with massive budget shortfalls and tattering healthcare safety nets, the Obama administration is intensifying a drive to help state leaders find ways to wring savings from their Medicaid programs. Thursday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to the nation’s 50 governors suggesting a range of cuts they can make to Medicaid, including dropping some people from the program…”
• Fla. lawmakers could expand Medicaid privatization, By Kelli Kennedy (AP), February 2, 2011, Miami Herald: “Florida legislators seem poised to pass a bill during its coming session aimed at reducing the state’s Medicaid expenditures by expanding privatization of the program, but that may not get federal approval. The Republican Legislature wants to put more of the state’s nearly 3 million Medicaid recipients into privately managed care, expanding a 2006 pilot program implemented under former Gov. Jeb Bush that affects five counties – Broward, Duval, Baker, Clay and Nassau. Gov. Rick Scott said Tuesday he’d like to expand the program statewide. Scott recently talked with federal health officials about the waiver and said he hopes it’s extended without changes. Florida’s Medicaid program cost about $18 billion during the last fiscal year, with the state paying $8 billion and the federal government footing $11 billion. The cost is expected to rise to more than $20 billion during the current fiscal year…”
• As many as 182,000 to join state Medicaid, By Ry Rivard, February 1, 2011, Charleston Daily Mail: “Three years before national health care reform’s most expensive provisions take effect, West Virginia officials are struggling to guess how many residents will suddenly be insured by the government-run Medicaid program and how much the state will owe because of it. As many as 182,000 new people could enroll in the state Medicaid program, costing the state as much as $175 million a year starting in 2017, officials from the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources said Monday. And as many as half of those people may already have insurance, including about 29,000 who currently pay for private insurance, according to separate estimates made by DHHR. Officials are still struggling to understand the effects of the Obama administration’s overhaul of the nation’s health care system. A tangle of administrative rules and shifting projections makes every number tentative and subject to change…”