MACPAC: Slow Medicaid DSH Cuts
Slow the pace of scheduled cuts in Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payments (Medicaid DSH), the non-partisan agency that advises Congress and the administration will tell Congress in its next report of policy recommendations.
The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission voted 16-1 recently to recommend to Congress that Medicaid DSH cuts, mandated by the Affordable Care Act but delayed three times by Congress, be reduced in size and spread out over a longer period of time.
Currently, Medicaid DSH allotments to the states are scheduled to be reduced $4 billion in FY 2020 and then $8 billion a year in FY 2021 through FY 2025. MACPAC recommends that the cuts be reduced to $2 billion in FY 2020, $4 billion in FY 2021, $6 billion in FY 2022, and $8 billion a year from FY 2023 through FY 2029.
MACPAC commissioners also voted to urge Congress to restructure the manner in which Medicaid DSH allotments to the states are calculated based on the number of low-income individuals who reside in the states.
Most Pennsylvania safety-net hospitals receive Medicaid DSH payments and consider them a vital resource in helping to underwrite the uncompensated care they provide to uninsured patients.
MACPAC is a non-partisan legislative branch agency that provides policy and data analysis and makes recommendations to Congress, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the states on a wide array of issues affecting Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Learn more about MACPAC’s actions on Medicaid DSH in the Fierce Healthcare article “MACPAC calls for Congress to delay cuts to safety-net hospitals.”
The Pennsylvania Health Law Project has issued a statement detailing its perspective on the recently proposed American Health Care Act, which would both repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act of 2010.
The Kaiser Family Foundation has just created a new tool that enables users to compare and contrast all of the current repeal and replace proposals: you pick the proposals you want to compare and you select the aspects of those proposals that interest you.
In a new report, the Pennsylvania Health Funders Collaborative attempts to answer that question, offering projections on the impact of the 2010 health reform’s repeal on jobs, prescription drug coverage for seniors, insurance status for low-income Pennsylvanians, hospitals, and the state’s economy as a whole.
If the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, is repealed and not replaced, over a million Pennsylvanians could lose access to health care and tens of thousands of people – people who are our friends, our neighbors, and our family members that are currently receiving treatment for a substance use disorder – would lose insurance coverage and no longer be able to afford their treatment.