3 million fewer may be insured due to ruling, study predicts, By Robert Pear, July 24, 2012, New York Times: “The Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday that the Supreme Court decision on President Obama’s health care overhaul would probably lead to an increase in the number of uninsured and a modest reduction in the cost to the federal government, compared with estimates before the court ruling. The court said, in effect, that a large expansion of Medicaid envisioned under the 2010 law was a state option, not a requirement. As a result, the budget office said, it now predicts that six million fewer people will be insured by Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people. But half of them, it said, will probably gain private insurance coverage through health insurance exchanges to be established in all states…”
Supreme Court decision scales back cost, coverage of healthcare law, By Noam N. Levey, July 24, 2012, Los Angeles Times: “Fewer Americans will likely get health insurance over the next decade under President Obama’s healthcare law as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision to limit it, according to a new analysis of the landmark ruling. At the same time, the court’s decision to allow states to opt out of a major expansion of the government Medicaid insurance program for the poor could also save taxpayers $84 billion by 2022, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates. The new projections confirm that the court’s ruling will not fundamentally alter the law that Obama signed in 2010…”
CBO: Court ruling cuts cost of health-care law, but leaves 3 million more uninsured, By Lori Montgomery, July 24, 2012, Washington Post: “President Obama’s signature health-care initiative will cost a bit less than expected thanks to last month’s Supreme Court ruling, but the court’s decision is also likely to leave millions of poor people without access to health insurance, congressional budget analysts said Tuesday. In its June 28 ruling, the court upheld the bulk of the Affordable Care Act, but struck down its plan to require states to expand their Medicaid programs to cover poor people who earn as much as 138 percent of the federal poverty level. As a result of the court’s decision, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office now expects that some states will refuse to fully expand their Medicaid programs or will not do so immediately when most provisions of the law take effect in 2014…”
Maine debate hints at rift on Medicaid after ruling, By Abby Goognough and Robert Pear, July 18, 2012, New York Times: “As some Republican governors declare that they will not expand Medicaid under the national health care law, Gov. Paul R. LePage is going a step further. In what could lead to a direct confrontation with the Obama administration, he is planning to cut thousands of people from Maine’s Medicaid rolls, arguing that the recent Supreme Court ruling on the law gives him license to do so. Mr. LePage, a Republican, says the ruling gave states leeway to tighten eligibility for Medicaid, the joint state-federal program that provides health care to low-income and disabled people. Federal officials insist that while the ruling allowed states to opt out of a planned expansion of Medicaid, it left intact all other aspects of the law affecting the program…”
The big push on Medicaid fraud, By Emily Ramshaw, July 19, 2012, New York Times: “When it comes to finding cost savings in the state’s unwieldy Medicaid program, the Office of Inspector General at the Health and Human Services Commission gets high marks. The division, charged with investigating fraud among health care providers paid to treat impoverished children and the disabled, has drastically increased both its caseload and the potential monetary returns associated with it over the last fiscal year. The spike has won glowing reviews from budget-weary state lawmakers and has cast Texas’ innovative enforcement team into the national spotlight. But O.I.G.’s dollar-recovery strategy – which includes an increased reliance on a rule that allows investigators to freeze financing for any health care provider accused of overbilling – has enraged doctors, dentists and other providers who treat Medicaid patients. They say an anonymous call to a fraud hot line or a computer-generated analysis of a handful of billing codes is enough to halt their financing without even a hearing, jeopardizing their practices and employees and leaving thousands of needy patients in a lurch while the state works to prove – or rule out – abuse…”
Reluctance in some states over Medicaid expansion, By Robert Pear and Michael Cooper, June 29, 2012, New York Times: “Millions of poor people could still be left without medical insurance under the national health care law if states take an option granted by the Supreme Court and decide not to expand their Medicaid programs, state officials and health policy experts said Friday. Republican officials in more than a half-dozen states said they opposed expanding Medicaid or had serious doubts about it, even though the federal government would pick up all the costs in the first few years and at least 90 percent of the expenses after that…”
Some GOP states want to abandon Medicaid expansion, By David A. Lieb (AP), June 29, 2012, San Francisco Chronicle: “Republicans in at least four states want to abandon an expansion of Medicaid in President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, and more than a dozen other states are considering it in the wake of the Supreme Court decision removing the threat of federal penalties. The high court upheld most of Obama’s law, but the justices said the federal government could not take away states’ existing federal Medicaid dollars if they refused to widen eligibility to include adults who are only slightly above the poverty line. Some Republican governors and lawmakers quickly declared that they would not carry out the expansion. The states considering whether to withdraw from the expansion include presidential battlegrounds Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Colorado…”
Gov. Rick Scott confirms: No Medicaid expansion for Florida, By David Royse, July 2, 2012, Florida Times-Union: “Florida will opt out of spending about $2 billion more to expand Medicaid, and won’t build insurance exchanges, another optional part of the federal health care law, Gov. Rick Scott’s office said Sunday. The Supreme Court ruling last week upholding the massive health care spending overhaul also specifically said the federal government can’t coerce states into expanding Medicaid, as the law requires, by withholding Medicaid money for parts of the program already in existence…”
Georgia faces tough call on Medicaid, By Carrie Teegardin and Misty Williams, July 1, 2012, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the health care overhaul, but Georgia’s emergency rooms and free clinics may still be jammed with the uninsured years after that landmark ruling. The court on Thursday gave states the authority to opt out of the massive expansion of the Medicaid program that is a key component of the law. In 2014, that expansion would extend Medicaid to about 650,000 poor and low-income Georgians who do not qualify for the program today. Without the Medicaid expansion, however, Georgia will not come close to extending insurance to most of the 1.9 million residents who do not have it now…”
Nevada must confront decision of whether to expand Medicaid, By David McGrath Schwartz, July 1, 2012, Las Vegas Sun: “Gov. Brian Sandoval threw cold water on the celebration of health care advocates for the poor last week by casting doubt on whether Nevada will expand its Medicaid program. Sandoval cited the costs, which he said could eat into other budgets, like education. But health care advocates said not expanding the system would save the state few dollars, compared with the money it would be giving up from the federal government. More importantly, they said, it would leave thousands of Nevadans without insurance…”
Medicaid expansion now a vexing issue for Gov. Rick Snyder, Republican lawmakers, By David Eggert, June 29, 2012, Mlive.com: “Michigan no longer has a ‘gun to the head’ forcing an expansion of Medicaid – as Chief Justice John Roberts put it – but it now is facing a political battle. Add an unprecedented 500,000 low-income residents to a program in 2014 that already serves approximately one in five Michiganders? Or let many of them go without health insurance – since they might otherwise be exempted from the mandate to buy it? Republican Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration and GOP state legislative leaders did not have much to say on the issue Thursday, the day the U.S. Supreme Court upheld most of the federal Affordable Care Act but struck down attempts to penalize states that do not expand Medicaid…”
High court ruling could leave 290K Hoosiers uncovered, By J.K. Wall, July 1, 2012, Indianapolis Business Journal: “After last week’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling gave Indiana the option not to expand its Medicaid program and some state legislators promised to do exactly that, Indiana hospitals started to worry. That’s because a decision by Indiana to leave its Medicaid program unchanged could leave as many as 290,000 Hoosier adults, who would have been newly eligible for Medicaid coverage, with no good options…”
Virginia faces key decisions on special session, Medicaid, By Michael Martz and Olympia Meola, Richmond Times-Dispatch: “Virginia political leaders and lawmakers may not like the U.S. Supreme Court ruling to uphold federal health care reform, but they face big decisions soon on how to carry out the law in a national election year. The most immediate decision is whether to call a special legislative session this year on creating a state exchange for health benefits. The ruling also gives Virginia an unexpected choice on whether to expand its Medicaid program to cover hundreds of thousands of uninsured Virginians…”
