Health care reform Archives - Page 6 of 13 - Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania

Legislature to Participate in PA Medicaid Expansion Talks

The Corbett administration plans to spend the coming weeks bringing the state legislature into it Medicaid expansion deliberations.
While the administration reportedly has been working to develop a Medicaid expansion program that meets its own requirements for financial responsibility and will pass federal muster, it has been doing so largely without consulting with the state legislature, which has been in recess since early July. While legislative approval is not needed for most aspects of Medicaid expansion, Department of Public Welfare Secretary Bev Mackereth told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the administration will begin consulting with the legislature.
Medicaid expansion, originally mandated by the Affordable Care Act, was made optional for states by a Supreme Court decisions. Only about half of the states have definitively acted to expand their programs, and while Pennsylvania officials previously expressed strong opposition to expansion, they now appear on course to unveil an expansion proposal this fall.
Read more about the administration’s latest efforts, and its intention to involve the legislature, in this Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report .

PA Safety Net Admin2013-09-11T06:00:19+00:00September 11th, 2013|Affordable Care Act, Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Gap in Reform Law Could Leave Many Low-Income People Uninsured

When the Supreme Court gave states discretion over whether to expand their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act, it unintentionally created a gap in potential coverage options for many low-income people that may leave many of those people without affordable health insurance.
According to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund, the 2010 reform law anticipated that everyone with incomes below 133 percent of the federal poverty level would be covered by Medicaid. Individuals and families with incomes between 133 percent and 399 percent of the federal poverty level could use new federal subsidies to help purchase private health insurance.
In states that are not expanding their Medicaid programs, people with incomes between 133 percent and 399 percent of the federal poverty level will still be able to take advantage of federal premium subsidies. People with incomes less than 133 percent of the federal poverty level but who do not qualify for their state’s Medicaid program – qualification criteria vary from state to state – will not be eligible for the same subsidies as many who earn more than them because the reform law assumed that all such individuals would be covered by Medicaid.
According to the Commonwealth Fund, this unanticipated gap in the reform law means that as many as 42 percent of people who suffer from periodic or chronic lack of insurance and who live in states that are not expanding their Medicaid programs will not benefit in any way from Affordable Care Act insurance reforms.
Pennsylvania is one of the states in which this problem will occur because the state is not expanding its Medicaid program. It almost certainly will require Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals to provide more uncompensated care than originally expected when the reform law was enacted.
Read more about the unintended consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision and the choice by some states not to expand their Medicaid programs in In States’ Hands: How the Decision to Expand Medicaid Will Affect the Most Financially Vulnerable Americans, a new report from the Commonwealth Fund.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-09-09T06:00:22+00:00September 9th, 2013|Affordable Care Act, Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Medicaid Expansion to Ease Hospitals’ Uncompensated Care But Not in PA

Hospitals in states that expand their Medicaid programs under provisions of the Affordable Care Act should see a reduction in their uncompensated care once people begin applying for Medicaid benefits.
That will not be happening in Pennsylvania, however, because the state is not expanding eligibility for its Medicaid program.
In states that do expand their programs, hospitals will continue to lose money serving Medicaid patients because Medicaid payments seldom cover the cost of the services hospitals provide. Demand for Medicaid services will grow in these states, moreover, as more people become eligible for benefits and some who have not had regular access to care for years begin to use their new benefits to address long-standing medical problems.
Recent published reports suggest that the Corbett administration is working on an expansion plan, to be negotiated with the federal government, and that this plan may be revealed to the public this fall.
Michigan became the most recent state to decide to take advantage of the Affordable Care Act and expand its Medicaid program. For a look at how Medicaid expansion will affect hospitals in that state, see this Detroit Free Press article .

PA Safety Net Admin2013-09-04T13:40:02+00:00September 4th, 2013|Affordable Care Act, Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

PA Inching Closer to Medicaid Expansion

Pennsylvania state officials are working on a proposal to expand Medicaid eligibility in the state as provided for in the Affordable Care Act.
But newly eligible Pennsylvanians would not participate in the state’s current Medicaid program.
Speaking to a rotary club in York, Department of Public Welfare Secretary Bev Mackereth told her audience that because the state lacks confidence in the willingness of the federal government to continue funding care for new Medicaid enrollees, the state is developing a plan to present different Medicaid options to newly eligible people.
State officials continue to negotiate the terms of such a program with the federal government and anticipate submitting their proposal to the federal government in the near future. If approved, they do not anticipate launching such an initiative until at least January of 2015.
Read more about the state’s plans in this Calkins Media report.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-08-30T06:00:24+00:00August 30th, 2013|Affordable Care Act, Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Hearing Set on Medicaid Expansion

The Pennsylvania House Democratic Policy Committee will hold a hearing on Medicaid expansion in the state this Thursday, August 1 in Philadelphia.
The hearing, which will begin at 10:00 a.m., will be held at the Independence Center’s Liberty View Ballroom, at 6th and Market Streets.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-07-30T06:00:51+00:00July 30th, 2013|Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

The Implications of Rejecting Medicaid Expansion

Twenty-one states have decided not to expand their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act and another six states remain undecided.
How will these decisions affect these states and their residents? How many people who might have become eligible for Medicaid will remain uninsured? How much federal Medicaid revenue will these states forgo? How will these decisions affect hospitals’ uncompensated care costs? How might payments to hospitals be affected?
Pennsylvania is one of the six states where Medicaid expansion is still being considered, and the report includes specific projections for the commonwealth. The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania (SNAP) supports Medicaid expansion in the state.
A new study from the Urban Institute attempts to quantify the answers to these and other questions. Find “The Cost of Not Expanding Medicaid” here , on the web site of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-07-25T06:00:48+00:00July 25th, 2013|Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off

DSH Delay Bill Picks Up Co-Sponsors

A bill that would delay implementation of Medicaid disproportionate share (Medicaid DSH) and Medicare DSH payment cuts for two years now has 46 co-sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives.
H.R. 1920, the DSH Reduction Relief Act of 2103, would delay for two years the DSH cuts mandated by the Affordable Care Act.
The rationale underlying the proposal is that between some states choosing not to expand their Medicaid programs as the reform law envisioned and the delay in imposing the mandate for businesses to help their employees with health insurance, the expected rise in the rate of insurance will be slower than expected and hospitals that care for especially large numbers of low-income patients will have a greater need for DSH revenue than originally anticipated.
Because they serve so many more low-income patients than the typical acute-care hospital and Pennsylvania is not among the states planning to expand eligibility for Medicaid, the state’s safety-net hospitals are especially interested in this issue and have conveyed their support for the bill both to Congress and to the administration.
Read more about the proposed DSH delay bill and its prospects for passage in this CQ HealthBeat article presented by the Commonwealth Fund.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-07-19T06:00:20+00:00July 19th, 2013|Health care reform|Comments Off

SNAP Asks PA Delegation to Back DSH Delay

SNAP has asked Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation in Washington to support a bill before the House that would delay planned cuts in Medicare disproportionate share hospital payments (Medicare DSH) and Medicaid DSH for two years.
H.R. 1920, the DSH Reduction Relief Act of 2013, would delay cuts mandated by the Affordable Care Act.
SNAP’s letter to the delegation notes that

These DSH cuts are scheduled to begin…before the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid and insurance expansion provisions can even begin to have an effect; as you know, moreover, there currently is no plan to expand Medicaid eligibility in Pennsylvania. In addition, the administration recently announced a one-year delay in the reform law’s employer health insurance mandate. Together, Medicare DSH and Medicaid DSH cuts will amount to millions of dollars worth of reductions in payments that safety-net hospitals like ours need to serve their communities, and they would be coming at a time of great ambiguity as implementation of this aspect of the Affordable Care Act gets under way.

Read SNAP’s letter to the PA congressional delegation here .

PA Safety Net Admin2013-07-15T06:00:17+00:00July 15th, 2013|Health care reform|Comments Off

SNAP Registers Views on Proposed Medicaid DSH Regulation

In response to a requirement in the Affordable Care Act, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has published a proposed regulation describing how it envisions reducing future Medicaid disproportionate share (Medicaid DSH) spending.
In response to that proposed regulation, SNAP has submitted a formal comment letter to CMS expressing support for some aspects of the proposal, offering recommendations for improving CMS’s proposed methodology, and conveying support for the administration’s budget proposal to delay all Medicaid DSH cuts for one year.
Read SNAP’s Medicaid DSH comment letter here .

PA Safety Net Admin2013-07-11T06:00:49+00:00July 11th, 2013|Health care reform|Comments Off

PA Senate to Move on Medicaid Expansion

Pennsylvania state Senate leaders plan to bring a vote to expand the state’s Medicaid program to the Senate floor this week.
The bill, according to Senate leaders, will include conditions that will make it more palatable to more conservative Republicans and the governor. Democrats are already thought to support Medicaid expansion.
While the bill is considered likely to enjoy solid support in the Senate, it is not clear whether the state House is as interested in Medicaid expansion as envisioned under the federal Affordable Care Act.
The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania (SNAP) supports Medicaid expansion in the state.
Read more about the Senate bill, who is behind it, and what the bill says in this Centre Daily Times article .

PA Safety Net Admin2013-06-24T06:00:32+00:00June 24th, 2013|Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off

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