Fast-Moving Bill To Curtail Voter-Approved Medicaid Expansion Secures Key Approval In Utah Legislature

Lawmakers who have been worrying about the long-term costs of expanding Medicaid have been quickly working to roll back some of the changes that Utah voters approved through a ballot initiative in November's elections. Other Medicaid news focuses on waivers, delays in payment and mental health services.

The Associated Press: Utah Plan To Cut Medicaid Expansion By 50,000 Nears Passage
A plan to scale back a voter-approved Medicaid expansion in Utah won a key approval in the state Legislature on Friday despite protests that it reduces access to needed health care and thwarts voters' wishes. The measure would insure about 50,000 fewer people under Medicaid, a change that would need a federal approval that has not been given for any other state. Republican lawmakers argue that and other restrictions are essential to controlling long-term costs, but say their plan will still cover the state's neediest. (2/8)

The Hill: Utah Bill To Scale Back Voter-Approved Medicaid Expansion Passes State House
About 53 percent of Utah voters in the November midterm election approved Proposition 3, which would fully expand Medicaid to people making up to 138 percent of the poverty line, extending health-care benefits to about 150,000 people. The House-passed legislation brings that rate back to 100 percent of the poverty line, while allowing people who earn more to buy subsidized insurance on the federal exchanges. It also includes work requirements and spending limits. (Axelrod, 2/9)

Kaiser Health News: Utah Voters Approved Medicaid Expansion, But State Lawmakers Are Balking
The activists who pushed the ballot measure are not pleased. “We were very clear about what we wanted,” said Andrew Roberts, a spokesman for Utah Decides, the group that organized the Medicaid expansion referendum, known as Proposition 3. “We are frustrated, and I think Utahns are frustrated.” That frustration led his group to hire a billboard truck to drive in circles around the Capitol building and through the snowy streets of Salt Lake City and its suburbs. (Neumann, 2/8)

Salt Lake Tribune: Volunteers Ask Voters In Districts That Approved Prop. 3′s Medicaid Expansion To Talk To Their Senators, Who Have Voted To Water It Down
Proponents of full Medicaid expansion in Utah took their fight to state lawmakers on Saturday, going door to door in key districts where voters backed Proposition 3 but whose legislators have voted to water it down. ... Organizer Dawn Le, who turned out in Taylorsville with a handful of other supporters, said legislators were willfully ignoring the desires of voters to extend health coverage to disadvantaged Utahns. (Semerad, 2/10)

CQ: Utah House Passes Medicaid Expansion Repeal
State Rep. James Dunnigan, the Republican sponsor of the expansion plan in the Utah House, said CMS assured him that federal officials will be ready by April to implement a short-term bridge plan to accommodate the state's wish for the lower poverty threshold. The plan would cover individuals with income up to 100 percent of the level but at a greater cost to the state until a longer-term waiver could be approved. (Raman, 2/8) 

Modern Healthcare: Medicaid Waivers Ending Retrospective Eligibility Shift Costs To Providers, Patients
Last year, Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami admitted an uninsured, low-income patient who stayed in the hospital for 86 days and ran up total charges of more than $1 million. It took the public hospital's staff 65 days to complete a Medicaid application for the patient. Once it was approved, the Florida Medicaid agency covered bills for the previous 90 days, as per federal Medicaid policy in effect across the country since 1972. Jackson received a payment of $82,000, based on the state's limit of 45 covered hospital days per year. But on Feb. 1, Florida ended retrospective Medicaid eligibility under a waiver granted by the CMS in November and effective through June, which likely will be extended. Now it will only cover claims back to the first day of the month in which an application is filed. (Meyer, 2/9)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Medicaid 'Waiver' Proposal Sparks Debate In Georgia Legislature
What to do about Georgia’s thousands of poor adults without health coverage sparked a wave of debate Friday, one day after Gov. Brian Kemp was quoted in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution embarking on plans to address it. Democrats decried Kemp’s plan to spend $1 million on researching and developing a more conservative Georgia plan for Medicaid. (Hart and Niesse, 2/8)

Des Moines Register: Iowa Must Consider Dentist's Appeals Of Medicaid Payments, Court Rules
Iowa must consider the appeals of a Council Bluffs dentist who says a Medicaid company is improperly denying payment for the services he provides to poor and elderly residents, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday. The government program is managed by private corporations and provides dental services to more than 155,000 Iowans. If dentists can't appeal payment denials, fewer dentists will offer care under the Medicaid program, and more low-income Iowans won't get the care they need, the dentist's attorney argued. (Clayworth, 2/8)

Boston Globe: Federal Judge: State Fails To Provide Prompt Mental Health Care To Poor Children
A federal judge sharply rebuked the state for failing to provide prompt mental health services to low-income children, saying that constant delays can lead to violent physical outbursts, removal from homes, and traumatizing and unnecessary hospital stays. Massachusetts has repeatedly violated its own standard of providing certain mental health treatment to seriously ill children on Medicaid within 14 calendar days, with thousands of children having waited weeks, putting them at risk for “devastating setbacks,’’ US District Court Judge Michael Ponsor found. (Kowlaczyk, 2/9)

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