Suzanimal
05-06-2015, 07:27 PM
Without altering their opposition to expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, Georgia officials now say they’re thinking about asking the federal government for more Medicaid money to help the state’s struggling rural hospitals and its big “safety net” hospitals like Grady Memorial in Atlanta.
The outlines of the plan are unclear. State health officials say they will seek permission from the feds to “experiment” with Medicaid in a way that would shore up rural and safety net hospitals. But there are no plans to expand Medicaid, they said.
Dozens of rural hospitals face funding shortfalls so acute that they threaten access to care for tens of thousands of Georgians across the state. Since 2001, eight rural hospitals have closed and more than a dozen are considered “financially fragile.”
Many hospitals support expansion of Medicaid to insure hundreds of thousands of Georgians who don’t have any health coverage — and turn them into paying customers for the hospitals. The expansion would bring in tens of billions of new federal dollars. But Gov. Nathan Deal and other Republican leaders have refused, saying the state can’t afford its share of the cost of expansion.
The current action contemplated by health officials involves obtaining a special waiver from the federal government to change the way Medicaid works in Georgia. Six states have used the program — called a Section 1115 waiver — to expand Medicaid in a way that is politically acceptable to conservatives. For example, Arkansas obtained an 1115 waiver that enabled it to expand Medicaid on its own terms: instead of using the new money to grow a government program, it used the Medicaid funding to enable uninsured residents to buy their own insurance plans.
Authorization for a Section 1115 waiver was quietly slipped into the state budget that Deal is expected to sign on Monday. But officials insist the waiver won’t be used to expand Medicaid.
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http://www.myajc.com/news/news/local/georgia-weighs-medicaid-experiment-but-not-expansi/nk97x/#9944a40b.257146.735724
The outlines of the plan are unclear. State health officials say they will seek permission from the feds to “experiment” with Medicaid in a way that would shore up rural and safety net hospitals. But there are no plans to expand Medicaid, they said.
Dozens of rural hospitals face funding shortfalls so acute that they threaten access to care for tens of thousands of Georgians across the state. Since 2001, eight rural hospitals have closed and more than a dozen are considered “financially fragile.”
Many hospitals support expansion of Medicaid to insure hundreds of thousands of Georgians who don’t have any health coverage — and turn them into paying customers for the hospitals. The expansion would bring in tens of billions of new federal dollars. But Gov. Nathan Deal and other Republican leaders have refused, saying the state can’t afford its share of the cost of expansion.
The current action contemplated by health officials involves obtaining a special waiver from the federal government to change the way Medicaid works in Georgia. Six states have used the program — called a Section 1115 waiver — to expand Medicaid in a way that is politically acceptable to conservatives. For example, Arkansas obtained an 1115 waiver that enabled it to expand Medicaid on its own terms: instead of using the new money to grow a government program, it used the Medicaid funding to enable uninsured residents to buy their own insurance plans.
Authorization for a Section 1115 waiver was quietly slipped into the state budget that Deal is expected to sign on Monday. But officials insist the waiver won’t be used to expand Medicaid.
...
http://www.myajc.com/news/news/local/georgia-weighs-medicaid-experiment-but-not-expansi/nk97x/#9944a40b.257146.735724