While last week’s withdrawal of the American Health Care Act at least temporarily halted talk of immediate repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act, at least one aspect of that proposed legislation, often discussed in the past, is sure to arise in the future as well:  replacing the current manner in which the federal government matches state Medicaid funding with Medicaid per capita limits or Medicaid block grants.
In a new issue brief, the Kaiser Family Foundation examines how a switch to per capita limits or block grants might affect low-income seniors served by both Medicare and Medicaid.  Among the issues the brief addresses are:

• why such a switch would matter to low-income seniors at all
• how it might change federal funding of Medicaid for low-income seniors
• how states might react in ways that would affect low-income seniors
• how it might affect the providers who serve low-income seniors
• how such an approach might vary from state to state

Any move to Medicaid per capita limits or block grants could have serious implications for Pennsylvania safety-net hospitals and the communities they serve because these hospitals serve so many dually eligible Medicare/Medicaid patients.
Learn more about a possible change in how the federal government pays for its share of the Medicaid program that will surely find its way into future health policy discussions and debates in the Kaiser Family Foundation issue brief “What Could a Medicaid Per Capita Cap Mean for Low-Income People on Medicare?”