Since January of last year, Pennsylvania’s Medical Assistance program has limited categorically needy adult recipients over the age of 21 to six prescriptions a month.
While Medical Assistance has established a process for seeking exceptions to this limit, the Department of Public Welfare has now published a new MA Bulletin that lists exceptions that will automatically be granted.
Find that list in this
MA Bulletin.
In a letter to the leaders of the two legislative appropriations committees, Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare Acting Secretary Beverly Mackereth has questioned whether the state can rely on the continued availability of certain key parts of funding Medicaid expansion in the commonwealth.
In particular, Secretary Mackereth questioned whether Pennsylvania would be able to continue levying its gross receipts tax on managed care organizations, which is expected to produce $1.5 billion in revenue to use for Medicaid over the next seven years.
Pennsylvania also has a number of potential Medicaid deferrals and allowances under consideration by the federal government that could result in the state receiving less federal Medicaid matching money.
Read Secretary Mackereth’s letter to legislative leaders, and a press release that accompanies that letter, here
on the web site of PR Newswire.
Expanding Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program as provided for under the Affordable Care Act would increase federal spending in the state by $3.2 billion, save the state $220 million a year, and increase tax revenue another $215 million a year, according to a new analysis by the state’s Independent Fiscal Office.
The projected savings and spending cover the years 2016 through 2021.
The Independent Fiscal Office was created in 2010 to develop revenue projections and analyze fiscal, economic, and budget issues.
Find links to the report, a press release, and a fact sheet here
, on the Independent Fiscal Office’s web site.
The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare (DPW) has updated its Medical Assistance fee-for-service fee schedule for a variety of physician services, podiatrist services, surgical services, and more.
See a complete list of changes here
, in the Pennsylvania Bulletin.
The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare has published a notice detailing its final allocations for FY 2013 for Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payments (Medicaid DSH) for OB/neonatal intensive care services, trauma services, burn centers, academic medical centers, critical access hospitals, and selected other limited groups of providers.
Read the Pennsylvania Bulletin notice here.
The Pennsylvania Health Law Project has published the March 2013 edition of Health Law PA News, its monthly newsletter.Features this month include articles about the governor’s proposed FY 2014, prospects for Medicaid expansion, coming Affordable Care Act changes, the final expansion of HealthChoices, and more.
Find a link to the complete newsletter here
, on the web site of the Pennsylvania Health Law Project.
Still rejecting expansion of the state’s Medicaid program as envisioned under the Affordable Care Act, Pennsylvania Tom Corbett has indicated that he may be interested in following the lead of a few other states in attempting to use federal Medicaid expansion money to purchase private health insurance for newly eligible Medicaid recipients.
This news comes in the aftermath of the governor’s Washington, D.C. visit with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during which the two officials discussed the governor’s reluctance to incur the future cost increases that he believes the state will face under Medicaid expansion.
Recently, the governors of Arkansas, Ohio, and several other states have expressed interest in purchasing private insurance for new Medicaid recipients instead of expanding their states’ traditional Medicaid programs.
Read more about Governor Corbett’s meeting with Secretary Sebelius and the possibility that the state’s closed door to the question of Medicaid expansion is now slightly ajar in this Philadelphia Inquirer article.
A new study suggests that expanding Medicaid eligibility in Pennsylvania would create as many as 39,000 new jobs over the next seven years and generate enough new revenue to pay the state’s share of the expansion’s costs.
Or so says a new study by RAND Health.
According to the study, Medicaid expansion under the terms established by the Affordable Care Act would reduce Pennsylvania’s uninsured rate from the current 12.7 percent to 4.8 percent in 2016, spur $20 billion in economic growth by 2020, and generate more new tax revenue than the state would need to spend to pay its share of expansion’s cost once the federal share of expansion drops from 100 percent to 90 percent.
The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania (SNAP) supports Medicaid expansion in the state.
Read more about the RAND Health report, and find a link to the study, in this Central Penn Business Journal article.
Medicaid expansion in Pennsylvania could help compensate hospitals for the care they are currently providing to uninsured patients.
And enhanced Medicaid payments made possible under the Affordable Care Act also could help hospitals with their Medicaid shortfalls: the difference between what Pennsylvania pays hospitals for the Medicaid services they provide and the actual cost of those services.
So hospital executives around the state recently told the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat.
To learn more about how selected hospital executives view Medicaid expansion and why the Corbett administration has been reluctant so far to go ahead with that expansion, read the article “Small hospitals could gain from expansion” in this Johnstown Tribune-Democrat article.
Acting Department of Public Welfare Secretary Beverly Mackereth appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee this week for the first time to present and defend her department’s proposed FY 2014 – including its Medicaid budget.
Mackereth, herself a former member of the state House, also responded to committee members who questioned Governor Corbett’s decision not to expand Medicaid eligibility in the state, as provided for in the federal Affordable Care Act.
She also promised more dialogue with the General Assembly in the future.
Read more about Ms. Mackereth’s budget testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee in this Allentown Morning Call article
State Budget