PA Safety Net Admin, Author at Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania

Four in PA Congressional Delegation Question Medicaid Waiver Request

Four members of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation have written to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to question a specific aspect of the state’s Medicaid waiver application.
In a letter to CMS deputy director Cindy Mann, House members Allyson Schwartz, Robert Brady, Chaka Fattah, and Matt Cartwright urge the federal agency to determine whether the state’s proposed approach to Medicaid expansion would “unacceptably limit beneficiaries’ access to family planning services.”
See their letter here.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-04-17T14:44:48+00:00April 17th, 2014|Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Uncategorized|Comments Off

Public Comments on PA Medicaid Expansion Plan: Thumbs Down

Most of the people who submitted formal comments to the federal government about Pennsylvania’s plan to expand its Medicaid program wrote in opposition to the proposal.
The proposal, part of the Corbett administration’s “Healthy Pennsylvania” plan, calls for the state to use federal Medicaid funds to purchase private health insurance for people newly eligible for Medicaid.
According to a Community Legal Services of Philadelphia review completed two days before the April 11 submission deadline, 95 percent of those who expressed an opinion about the proposal opposed it, three percent supported it, and two percent offered mixed views.
The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania submitted formal comments expressing support for the Medicaid expansion proposal. SNAP’S comments can be found here.
Read a report about the comments, including why various groups did or did not support the proposal, in this Philadelphia Inquirer article.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-04-17T06:00:23+00:00April 17th, 2014|Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off

PA Recoups Tobacco Money in Court Ruling

A Philadelphia court has restored $120 million of Pennsylvania’s share of the annual proceeds from the master settlement that tobacco manufacturers entered into with state governments in 1998.
Last year, an arbitration panel ruled that Pennsylvania had failed to enforce selected tax collection requirements properly and reduced the state’s share of the settlement proceeds by $180 million. The state appealed the ruling, and last week the court restored $120 million of the $180 million reduction mandated by the arbitration panel.
Pennsylvania uses the proceeds of the tobacco settlement for a number of purposes, including to make Tobacco Uncompensated Care Fund payments to hospitals that serve especially large numbers of uninsured patients and to underwrite clinical, health services, and biomedical research under the state’s Commonwealth Universal Research Enhancement Program (CURE).
Tobacco Uncompensated Care Fund payments are a vital source of support for many Pennsylvania safety-net hospitals.
Learn more about the tobacco funding issue, the court’s ruling, and the implications of that ruling in this Allentown Morning Call article.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-04-15T06:00:29+00:00April 15th, 2014|Medicaid supplemental payments|Comments Off

Deadline for Commenting on PA Medicaid Expansion Proposal Approaches

The deadline for interested parties to submit formal comments to the federal government about Pennsylvania’s request for a waiver from selected federal Medicaid requirements in expanding its Medicaid program is this Friday, April 11 at 6:00 a.m.
Interested parties may submit their comments here.
Safety-net hospitals interested in submitting comments are invited to borrow from SNAP’s comment letter, which can be found here.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-04-08T06:00:37+00:00April 8th, 2014|Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Lack of Transportation Benefit in PA Medicaid Proposal Hurts, Critics Say

Pennsylvania’s application for a waiver from selected federal Medicaid requirements includes a request for permission to eliminate transportation services for Medicaid recipients.
And that hurts, some critics say.
The private insurance plans in which newly eligible Medicaid recipients would enroll under the state’s proposed Medicaid expansion plan would not be required to offer medical transportation to low-income recipients, and one critic of the state’s proposal told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that “Entitlement to health services is meaningless if you can’t access it.”
Read more about medical transportation, other so-called wraparound benefits, and how the Medicaid expansion component of the state’s Healthy Pennsylvania plan treats them in this Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-04-07T11:50:30+00:00April 7th, 2014|Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

SNAP Endorses PA Medicaid Expansion

The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania has endorsed Pennsylvania’s application for a waiver from selected federal Medicaid requirements so the state can expand its Medicaid program as envisioned under the Affordable Care Act.
Instead of expanding its current Medicaid program, however, the Corbett administration proposes that the newly eligible purchase approved private insurance plans, with the state to pay the premiums. This is part of the administration’s Healthy Pennsylvania proposal.
In endorsing the waiver application in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, SNAP expressed particular support for its proposal to create a Healthy Pennsylvania Safety Net Pool that would include an Uncompensated Care Pool and/or a Delivery System Reform Incentive Pool. The additional funding associated with such pools, SNAP believes, would help safety-net hospitals address the distinct needs of the low-income communities such hospitals serve.
See the letter of endorsement here, on the SNAP web site.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-04-04T09:53:00+00:00April 4th, 2014|Affordable Care Act, Health care reform, Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off

Healthy PA, Medicaid Expansion in Jeopardy?

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett has publicly expressed concern over whether the federal government will approve the state’s attempt to expand its Medicaid program under terms made possible by the federal health care reform law.
Both Corbett and Department of Public Welfare Secretary Beverly Mackereth have suggested that negotiations between the state and federal officials have not been going well.
The state submitted an application for a waiver from selected federal Medicaid requirements in February and has modified its proposal once since then, withdrawing a controversial mandatory job-search requirement. The application is currently undergoing a period of open public comment while state and federal officials negotiate its terms.
Under the Corbett administration’s Healthy Pennsylvania proposal, the state would expand Medicaid eligibility as envisioned under the federal Affordable Care Act but instead of simply opening up its current Medicaid program to the newly eligible, it would underwrite their enrollment in private health insurance plans chosen by those individuals.
Learn more about the latest developments in the state’s attempt to take Medicaid expansion in a decidedly different direction in this Philadelphia Inquirer article.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-04-03T08:54:11+00:00April 3rd, 2014|Affordable Care Act, Health care reform, Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

2.5 Million Uninsured, Underinsured in PA

1.4 million Pennsylvanians were uninsured and another 1.1 million were underinsured in 2012, according to a new report.
The report, America’s Uninsured: A State-by-State Look at Health Insurance Affordability Prior to the New Coverage Expansions, was produced by the Commonwealth Fund.
According to the Central Penn Business Journal, the report defines “underinsured” as

those whose households spent a high share of annual income on medical care — 10 percent or more of income on medical care, excluding premiums, or 5 percent or more if income was under 200 percent of the federal poverty level. It did not include insured people who needed care but went without it because of the out-of-pocket costs they would incur or the insured who stayed healthy during the year but whose health insurance would have exposed them to high medical costs had they needed and sought care.

Read about the Commonwealth Fund study in this Central Penn Business Journal article and find the study itself here.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-03-26T06:00:18+00:00March 26th, 2014|Uncategorized|Comments Off

MACPAC Recommends Steps to Ensure Continuity of Care

Citing income volatility among low-income Americans, the federal agency charged with analyzing Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) has recommended that Congress adopt measures to ensure that low-income Americans retain health insurance as their income fluctuates above and below the federal poverty level.
In its March report to Congress, MACPAC (the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission) recommends that Congress empower states to extend coverage to eligible adults for an entire year to ensure that as those adults become eligible for Medicaid, lose Medicaid eligibility as their income rises, and then become eligible again because of unemployment or illness, they can maintain continuity of coverage and care.
MACPAC also recommends that Congress extend the current transitional medical assistance program so low-income parents who move into the workforce do not immediately lose their Medicaid coverage and that it eliminate the waiting period for CHIP eligibility and prohibit CHIP premiums for children from families whose income is less than 150 percent of the federal poverty level.
MACPAC is a non-partisan federal agency charged with providing policy and data analysis to Congress on Medicaid and CHIP and making recommendations to Congress, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the states on a wide range of issues affecting these programs.
For more information about MACPAC’s March 2014 report and recommendations, see this MACPAC news release or find the entire report here.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-03-21T06:00:49+00:00March 21st, 2014|Uncategorized|Comments Off

PA Examining Long-Term-Care Issues

With a fast-growing elderly population, Pennsylvania currently has two advisory committees looking at how to help that population tend to its medical and social needs as it ages.
The state legislature’s bipartisan Joint State Government Commission is working with an advisory group to the state House and is expected to complete its work and issue a report this summer.
Meanwhile, Governor Corbett’s recently created Pennsylvania Long-Term Care Commission held its first meeting this month and is expected to work through the end of the year.
For a closer look at the issues these two groups are addressing and how they are going about their work, see this article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-03-19T06:00:52+00:00March 19th, 2014|long-term care, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

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