I sure hope they keep the pressure on to expand Medicaid during this time.
It’s constitutional – deal with it
The Obama administration has agreed to temporarily keep some federal Medicaid money flowing into Texas to help hospitals treat uninsured patients, a relief to health care providers that feared losing the funds over state leaders’ refusal to provide health insurance to low-income adults.
State health officials said Monday they have struck a deal with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to keep the program going for another 15 months, with hospital reimbursements remaining at their current level.
Those were the exact terms the Texas Health and Human Services Commission asked for last month. Agency leaders said the negotiations were a “big win for Texas.”
“We’re pleased these innovative programs will have the opportunity to continue,” Chris Traylor, the agency’s executive commissioner, said in a statement. “These programs are improving health care for Texas’ Medicaid clients and creating cost-savings for taxpayers.”
[…]
The 15-month extension also includes an additional $3.1 billion for DSRIP initiatives.
The Obama administration had previously signaled it was likely to stop footing the bill for at least some of Texas’ uncompensated care costs. Under the Affordable Care Act, the president’s signature health law, Texas was encouraged to expand its Medicaid program to cover nearly 1 million additional adults living in poverty — a move that would have given more poor patients a means to pay for care. The state’s Republican leadership hasvehemently opposed that option, criticizing Medicaid as an inefficient government program.
Federal health officials were unswayed by that argument, repeatedly telling state leaders they had no desire to use waiver funds to pay for costs that would otherwise be covered by a Medicaid expansion.
[…]
Texas health officials say they will continue negotiating a longer term extension of the funding over the next 15 months.
Those negotiations will likely be influenced by a study of the effectiveness of the uncompensated care pool, which the federal government asked Texas to commission. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission contracted with outside firms Health Management Associates and Deloitte to submit the study by the end of August. It will address questions such as how hospitals’ uncompensated care costs would be reduced under a Medicaid expansion.
If Texas and the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services do not reach an agreement at the end of the 15-month extension, in December 2017, the Obama administration said it “expects” that uncompensated care funding would be reduced after that.
“Specifically, the reduction will limit the size of the Uncompensated Care pool to the costs of uncompensated and charity care for low-income individuals who are uninsured and cannot be covered” under a Medicaid expansion, wrote Vikki Wachino, a senior federal health official, in a letter to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.
Additionally, the DSRIP pool would be reduced by 25 percent in 2018 and by an additional 25 percentage points each year after that, according to federal officials.
See here, here, and here for some background, and here for a copy of the letter CMS sent to Texas. I don’t really have anything to say that I haven’t said before. Texas needs to expand Medicaid, and if the state continues to refuse to do so, the federal government should not take any steps to mitigate the consequences of that decision. It’s up to the next Legislature now. State Rep. Garnet Coleman, Trail Blazers, and the Austin Chronicle have more.