PA: Medicaid Legislative Update

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

from pa state nurses asociation enewletter:

medicaid legislative update

house leaders confirmed they expect to pass a budget, by working into this weekend, at least until saturday or sunday.

leadership sources in the house and senate confirmed that the final budget will not cap hospital visits by the state's 1.8 million poor medicaid patients as gov. rendell initially proposed as a means to saving more than $60 million. house appropriations chairman brett feese, r-lycoming, said "that would just dump the cost on the hospitals as uncompensated care, because those people will still go to the hospital when they are that sick, so capping that made no sense."

house and senate republican and democratic leadership staff also said the legislature will likely adopt as legislation procedures already planned by the administration - waiving the caps for patients whose conditions will almost certainly require more hospital visits and prescriptions than the new caps will permit.

the final budget, administration and legislative sources confirmed, will also waive rendell's proposed caps on durable medical equipment needed by medicaid participants.

consensus has been reached to forgo giving hospitals their proposed 2-percent increases, in exchange for scuttling gov. rendell's proposals which, they said, would hurt their industry more than forfeiting an increase. that would save about $12 million, sources estimated. a further legislative plan to cut a 2-percent funding increase for hmos that service state medicaid participants is facing a hard pushback from the administration. rendell's officials said it would reduce funding for the hmos below federally-required standards.

the administration is also trying to resist a proposal by republican legislative leaders to cut another $45 million in medicaid vision and dental benefits for the 1.8 million medicaid patients. that left budget negotiators still searching for almost $100 million in medicaid cuts.

rendell has said he does not want to limit eligibility for medicaid and his experts have predicted 100,000 new participants will join medicaid this coming year. but house and senate budget negotiators are exploring lowering that prediction to 90,000, so the state will save money on paper.

budget negotiators and top aides also confirmed that the final budget will increase the state revenue growth prediction from gov. rendell's 2.39 percent to a more optimistic forecast

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commentary from delaware county daily times:

[color=#333366]editorial: cure for ailing medicaid system long overdue

physician, heal thyself. a variation on that directive was essentially the challenge given by state sen. ted erickson, r-26, of newtown and his fellow delaware county state legislators to local health-care providers facing potentially severe medicaid cuts in the 2006 budget.