Friday, January 11, 2013
Nursing Home Residents and My Medicaid Matters. Information Bulletin #368 (1/2013)
Over the next year, States may try to reduce community-based Medicaid-funded services for both disabled and elderly people. When they do, advocates should instead force them to focus money going to the institutional Medicaid-funded services, i.e., nursing homes, the flip side to the community. Nursing homes, unlike the community, continue to receive increased Medicaid reimbursements.
People who have “self-care” needs, i.e., who need assistance with activities of daily living, trigger both an ADA/Olmstead and a fiscal issue, depending on where they receive these Medicaid services – in the community or in an institution.
Based on data collected and analyzed by Steve Kaye, Director, PAS Center, UCSF, advocates can use the following points in your State’s My Medicaid Matters struggle to show how to reduce institutional expenses.
The point of the data is to enable advocates to ask why your State has so many non-elderly and non-cognitively impaired persons unnecessarily institutionalized. What follows are ratios of two specific subcategories of nursing home residents (1. non-elderly and 2. non-cognitively impaired) to the total state population with self-care difficulties in 2010.
First, nationally, there was an average of 6.3 non-elderly nursing home residents per 100 non-elderly people with self-care difficulties.
The ten worst States with much higher rates than 6.3 national average are ranked as follows: Illinois (#1 with 14.5 non-elderly N.H. residents), Connecticut (#2 with 12.2), North Dakota (#3 with 11.7), District of Columbia (#4 with 11.3), South Dakota (#5, 10.1), and then Ohio, Iowa, New York, Hawaii, and Missouri.
Why do some States have twice the national average of non-elderly persons with disabilities institutionalized? With appropriate scope and quantity of community-based services, many of these non-elderly people could and would want to live in the community.
Many States have addressed this and significantly reduced non-elderly persons in nursing homes – e.g., New Mexico has 2.8 non-elderly NH residents per 100 total NH residents, less than 25% of the worst State. The number of non-elderly persons in NH is a matter of State policy. What is your State doing to reduce this institutionalized population? Rather than reduce community-based services, reduce much more expensive NH residents and provide services in the community.
Second, nationally, there was an average 7.5 nursing home residents (all ages) without cognitive impairments per 100 with self-care difficulties.
The ten worst States with high rates well-higher than the national average are ranked as follows: North Dakota (#1 with 23.4 N.H. residents), Iowa (#2 with 17.0), South Dakota (#3 with 16.4), Connecticut (#4 with 16.2), Rhode Island (#5, 15.3) and then Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming, Indiana, and Minnesota.
States have addressed this and many have reduced this institutionalized population including, e.g., Oregon with only 3.1 non-cognitively impaired NH residents per 100 population with self-care difficulties, less than 13% of the worse State. Others include Alaska (2.3) and Arizona (4.3). Here’s another unnecessarily institutionalized group who should be addressed before community-based reductions are implemented.
Third, States which have “rapidly rebalanced” their state Long-Term Care Medicaid expenditures, i.e., shifted more than 10% of their Medicaid funds from institutional care to community-based care, have reduced the total number of long-stay nursing residents by 9% between 2002 and 2010. In States that have not rapidly rebalanced their LTC budgets, there has been an increase in nursing home residents.
Advocates must know what’s happening on the institutional side of the ledger. Look at the institutional expenditures over the past eight years. Has the N.H. per diem increased? Compare it to the community-based services. Are there people in N.H. who could be more inexpensively served in the community? Has the total N.H. population increased or decreased?
The NH industry is a powerful player, but we have the data and the way to save money. If your State is threatening to reduce community-based Medicaid Long-Term Care services, use these three items to argue why such reductions are wrong.
Steve Gold, The Disability Odyssey continues
Back issues of other Information Bulletins are available online at http://www.stevegoldada.com
with a searchable Archive at this site divided into different subjects.
Information Bulletins will also be posted on my blog located at http://stevegoldada.blogspot.com/
To contact Steve Gold directly, write to stevegoldada1@gmail.com or call 215-627-7100. Ext 227.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Medicaid Expansion, Disproportionate Share Hospital Payments, and a Train Wreck Waiting to Happen. Information Bulletin #367 (12/12).
The Affordable Care Act has many pieces. Some of the pieces are interdependent. This Information Bulletin deals with two of those pieces to explain their interdependence and why it is important to you.
When Congress enacted the Affordable Care Act in 2010, one provision (Medicaid Expansion) required Medicaid be provided to people who had not been previously eligible and whose incomes were under 133% of the federal poverty level, about $14,856 for a single person and $30,657 for a family of four.
This mandatory Medicaid Expansion would have impacted approximately 21.3 million low-income people nationwide, beginning in January 2014.
Another provision of the Affordable Care Act significantly reduced what was known as Medicaid payments to “Disproportionate Share Hospitals” (DSH). These were federal Medicaid reimbursements made annually to States for those hospitals that provided a significant amount of health care and service to many persons whose incomes had placed them above Medicaid, but who did not have private health insurance. At least 51% of these payments will be eliminated under the ACA by 2019.
Medicaid DSH payments pretty much covered the same 21.3 million people Medicaid Expansion was intended to have covered.
In 2010, when Congress enacted the ACA, Medicaid Expansion would have been mandatory on the States. The States would have had to provide Medicaid to the 21.3 million people. In return, the federal government would have paid 100% coverage of the costs of the 21.3 million for the first three year years and about 90% for the next three years.
Mandatory Medicaid Expansion has virtually no incremental cost to the States. It has been estimated that between 2013 and 2012the federal share of the expansion to all States would be $800 billion and the States’ share $8 billion.
Here’s how the DSH and the mandatory Medicaid Expansion were intended to be interdependent. With the enactment of the ACA, these 21.3 million people would have become Medicaid recipients and would have received services and care from the hospitals, which would then not need to have been reimbursed with DSH payments. As regular Medicaid recipients, no DSH reimbursement would have been necessary because States and then hospitals would have received direct Medicaid hospital reimbursement for these 21.3 million people.
Then came the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held that Congress could not require States to implement Medicaid Expansion (even though it would cost the States virtually no State funds). What the Court did not deal with was that ACA had virtually eliminated DSH payments.
Lo and behold – your hospitals can get royally shafted if your State does not opt to participate in the Medicaid Expansion.
How? The States and then the hospitals will not receive either the DSH payments for these 21.3 million people that they had received prior to the ACA. If a State does not opt for Medicaid Expansion, these same 21.3 million people will still go to hospitals that must treat them, but the hospitals will not receive Medicaid reimbursement. Neither Medicaid nor DSH payments.
For the hospitals and therefore for States that do not provide Medicaid Expansion, this is a train wreck waiting to happen.
What’s the answer? States must provide for Medicaid Expansion so that hospitals can receive Medicaid reimbursements for care and services they provide to these 21.3 million people.
Unfortunately, many States appear to be considering not voluntarily participating in Medicaid Expansion. We cannot believe that those States have factored in the DSH losses to their hospitals. From purely a financial viewpoint, States will significantly benefit if they expand Medicaid and ensure hospitals receive Medicaid reimbursement for the care and services they provide to the 21.3 million people.
Disability and Elderly Advocates:
1. Get to your statewide Hospital Associations. They have paid lobbies that know how to work the political process. Join their efforts to convince your Governors and State legislators to enact Medicaid Expansion. Timing is critical since State budgets are being planned NOW for 2014.
2. Most newspapers, etc. do NOT understand how the ACA’s Medicaid Expansion fits together with the DSH payments. Explain it to them.
Governors in the following States have threatened not to expand Medicaid in 2014. We are not sure how much is just huffing and puffing. Here are the approximate annual DSH Medicaid funds their States have received and potentially will lose, if Medicaid Expansion does NOT occur in these States.
ANNUAL MEDICAID DSH PAYMENTS TO (SELECTED) STATES:
Alabama $445,819,332
Arkansas $61,416,819
Connecticut $162,627,439
Florida $241,187,904
Indiana $121,122,632
Kansas $46,807,379
Kentucky $173,659,743
Louisiana $770,957,650
Michigan $338,776,418
Mississippi $204,084,644
Missouri $525,857,264
Nebraska $47,698,173
Nevada $95,232,395
New Jersey $975,416,270
New Mexico $28,851,260
Oklahoma $40,706,148
Ohio $566,951,426
Pennsylvania $534,244,593
Rhode Island $122,720,991
New Jersey $930,234,696
South Carolina $415,604,650
Tennessee $151,396,268
Texas $1,286,627,916
Utah $25,914,531
Virginia $192,435,368
West Virginia $55,087,700
Nationwide $15,019,365,273
Steve Gold, The Disability Odyssey continues
Back issues of other Information Bulletins are available online at http://www.stevegoldada.com
with a searchable Archive at this site divided into different subjects.
Information Bulletins will also be posted on my blog located at http://stevegoldada.blogspot.com/
To contact Steve Gold directly, write to stevegoldada1@gmail.com or call 215-627-7100. Ext 227.
Friday, November 30, 2012
SSI, People With Disabilities, and Reaching the Federal Poverty Level. Information Bulletin #366 (11/2012).
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is basically a federal program for people who are disabled (and older Americans).
As of 2011, there were about 6.7 million people with disabilities who received SSI (another 1 million recipients were over 65). These people are the poorest of all the disabled people in the country. Most of them do not qualify for either Social Security or Medicare; some receive both SSI and Social Security, but combined only to the SSI level.
Throughout the recent election campaign and well before that, there has been virtually no discussion, mention or let alone a moral outrage addressing a basic minimal, basic, livable support for people who struggle to survive on SSI.
The current monthly federal SSI grant is $698 a month ($8,376 annually) for a single person and for a couple it’s $1,086 a month ($13,032 annually). SSI eligibility automatically triggers Medicaid eligibility.
States have the option to provide a State Supplement to the federal SSI grant. Of the 6.7 million people with disabilities who somehow survive on SSI, only 1.6 million, who live in the community, receive a State Supplement.
By and large, most States supplement SSI for persons who reside in personal care homes, Medicaid facilities, nursing homes, and other institutions – but not for people with disabilities who live independently in the community. The amount of institutional SSI State supplement is much higher than the SSI State supplement to live independently in the community. Hmmm. Sounds like another institutional bias, contrary to ADA’s “the most integrated setting” a la Olmstead.
Let’s put the monthly federal SSI sums in some perspective. The federal poverty level is $10,890 for a single person and $14,710 for a couple, compared to the SSI federal $8,376 and $13,032 respectively. As inadequate as the federal poverty level is, it should be the bottom benchmark!
For people with disabilities who must survive on SSI, they live on 75% of the federal poverty level for a single person and 83% of the FPL for a couple. This gap has been approximately the same for the last ten years.
For those persons who reside in the community on SSI, to reach just the federal poverty level, the federal SSI grant (or a State supplement) would have to increase by $209 a month for a single person and $140 for a couple. Other than Alaska, no State provides that amount of a State Supplement for single persons with a disability who reside independently in the community. Only five States provide more than $140 a month for a couple.
We all know how extremely difficult it is for a SSI recipient who is disabled to find a place to live that they can afford. The “2010 Priced Out” Report clearly demonstrated how the housing market overwhelmingly trumps the SSI grant.
What advocates could do:
1. This is a federal issue. We do not believe any States will voluntarily increase their SSI State Supplements so people could afford to live healthy and safe lives independently in the community.
2. We need to make this a moral issue! It’s an outrage that the poorest disabled and elderly Americans are totally ignored and forgotten.
3. SSI cuts across all disability categories and the elderly. Therefore, increasing SSI is a great unifying and organizing issue.
4. Increasing the federal SSI amount even to the extremely inadequate federal poverty level is an economic stimulus on both a federal and State levels. People on SSI spend their entire grants just to survive, putting their entire grants into the economy. These are federal allocations well spent!
5. Where is the White House on this issue? Call the White House Domestic Policy, (202) 456-5594, and let them know.
6. Where are your U.S. Senators and House of Representatives who claim to represent and care about persons with disabilities and the elderly? Call them.
Steve Gold, The Disability Odyssey continues
Back issues of other Information Bulletins are available online at http://www.stevegoldada.com
with a searchable Archive at this site divided into different subjects.
Information Bulletins will also be posted on my blog located at http://stevegoldada.blogspot.com/
To contact Steve Gold directly, write to stevegoldada1@gmail.com or call 215-627-7100. Ext 227.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Disabled and Elderly People in China. Information Bulletin #365 (11/2012)
People with disabilities and elderly folks in China face many of the same issues we face in the U.S. What follows are some observations my wife and I have and what we learned during a recent trip to China. Obviously, what follows is limited to our observations and meetings with disability advocates.
Background data: Out of the 1.3 billion people, approximately 85 million are people with disabilities and 190 million are people aged 60 or older. There are about 33 million elderly with various disabilities. China also ranks disabilities I – V, e..g., blindness in one eye ranked a # II but blindness in both eyes ranks as a # I.
1.Shanghai and Beijing each have about 3 percent of their elderly population (not clear about people with disabilities) who are in nursing facilities.
In the past, elderly lived with their children as part of “filial piety.” Due to adult children’s pressure of work, their living costs, crowded housing, and geographically restricted medical insurance, such piety is quickly fading. There is no national health care and the available/affordable care depends on what Provence, like U.S. States, one lives in and one’s ability to pay for health insurance,
Despite a poll that said “only” 5.5 percent of the respondents wanted to send their parents to a nursing home, there are no other options. When asked what if their parents do not want to go into a nursing home, one person responded that “we talk to our parents and they understand they have to go into one.” People with disabilities and the elderly are virtually forced into nursing homes.
So much for choice.
2. China has only 300,000 caregivers, and one report indicated that most of them were unqualified. The same report estimated that about 11 million caregivers were needed
So much for community-based services instead of institutional care.
3. China has a very medicalized view and definitions of disability.
4. Despite a marked increase in Provincial medical insurance coverage for the elderly in the past decade, one professor said that the “government should work out policies to guarantee adequate care for the elderly, which is an essential part of stable development. Government should increase the input and add the insurance for healthcare and rehabilitation, which will be much needed among the elderly but not covered by the current insurance system.”
So much for a safety net.
5. China used the occasion of the 2008 Olympics to build curb cuts and install a number of accessible public bathrooms. During our recent visit, virtually every accessible bathroom in every city we visited was being used for storage and unusable by both disabled and nondisabled people.
6. Only in Beijing did we see a number of people with disabilities. In most other cities, we saw quite a number of disabled people who were begging in front of tourist attractions. One guide thought they were “professional beggars who maim themselves,” despite their obvious genetic impairments.
The absence of people with disabilities in public places in other cities was really stark.
7. The value of people with disabilities was reflected in a conversation that people with disabilities should work. When asked what should be done if they could not work, given their impairments and how they would live, the response was that “with 1.3 billion people, their lives were not valuable and some people [i.e., people with disabilities] will not be missed.”
8. China does not have a viable, active disability or elderly advocacy network. The China Disabled Persons’ Federation is a government appointed and controlled entity which appears to reflect the central government’s positions.
We were not surprised that the disability issues and problems were similar to many we face here.
Disabled people of the world unite, you have nothing to lose….
Steve Gold, The Disability Odyssey continues.
Back issues of other Information Bulletins are available online at http://www.stevegoldada.com
with a searchable Archive at this site divided into different subjects.
Information Bulletins are also be posted on my blog located at http://stevegoldada.blogspot.com/
To contact Steve Gold directly, write to stevegoldada1@gmail.com or call 215-627-7100. Ext 227.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
15 States Do Not Need Housing Vouchers for Disabled Persons to Leave Institutions. Information Bulletin #364 (8/2012).
States had to file an application with HUD to be eligible to receive some of the FY 2012 Section 811 Project-based Rental Assistance Demonstration Grants, aka the Melville vouchers.
The good news is that 35 States (and D.C.) applied and will compete to receive these vouchers. Congratulations to disability advocates who worked with your State agencies to develop and submit these applications.
What is amazing is that 15 States did NOT apply. While we recognize that many of the 35 States that did apply may not win the competition, these 35 at least got into the race.
What about the 15 States that did NOT apply? These 15 States obviously have an abundance of housing vouchers, just sitting around in some drawer, so that anyone who wishes to leave an institution will receive a voucher and not have housing as a barrier to living in the community. Right? These 15 States do not claim that their Money Follows the Person is hampered by housing, do they?
Are we correct? Can disability advocates in the 15 States just telephone their State Housing Finance agency and/or Medicaid agency and pick up a housing voucher that is not being used?
What are we missing? Why did these 15 States not compete?
Here are the 15:
Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
Hawaii
Idaho
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Nebraska
New Mexico
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Tennessee
Virginia
Wyoming
Steve Gold, The Disability Odyssey continues
Back issues of other Information Bulletins are available online at http://www.stevegoldada.com
with a searchable Archive at this site divided into different subjects.
As of August, 2010, Information Bulletins will also be posted on my blog located at http://stevegoldada.blogspot.com/
To contact Steve Gold directly, write to stevegoldada1@gmail.com or call 215-627-7100. Ext 227.
ADA’s Olmstead “Most Integrated Setting” Mandate Will Be Undercut. Information Bulletin #363 (8/2012).
Christine Gregoire, the Democratic Governor of Washington State, is deciding if she will threaten and undercut the right of people with disabilities to live in the community by eviscerating the Olmstead decision and the ADA’s “most integrated setting” mandate.
How? In response to cuts to personal care services for approximately 45,000 Medicaid recipients, disability advocates sued the State of Washington. Democratic Governor Christine Gregoire argued in court that individuals with disabilities must be already institutionalized in order to be protected under the Olmstead decision. The Circuit court disagreed with Governor Gregoire.
Now, Governor Gregoire is considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court! She is putting the rights of people with disabilities at significant risk. If she takes the case to the Supreme Court, this Supreme Court will take the opportunity to turn back the clock on our rights. If appealed, “M.R. v. Dreyfus,” the name of the case, it will give the very activist U.S. Supreme Court an opportunity to substantially erode or completely eliminate Olmstead.
The disability community in Washington State has urged Governor Gregoire to settle this case without going to the Supreme Court, but she has been unwilling to do so
Disability Advocates must TAKE ACTION NOW to contact key people within the Gregoire administration and the national leaders in the Democratic Party to urge Governor Gregoire to settle this case and not take it to the Supreme Court.
Our message: “Governor Gregoire should support the right of people with disabilities living in the most integrated setting in the community! Settle M.R. v. Dreyfus! No appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
The Olmstead decision is one of the few effective advocacy tools that the disability community has to fight against state budget cuts to home and community-based services that would force people with disabilities into unwanted and unwarranted institutionalization.
TAKE THE FOLLOWING ACTIONS NOW. TIMING IS CRITICAL PLEASE DO IT TODAY:
Please send emails, telephone and/or twitter to:
1. Marty Loesch, Chief of Staff for Governor Chris Gregoire, (360) 902-0499. Marty.loesch@gov.wa.gov
2. Kareem Dale, White House, Kareem_A._Dale@who.eop.gov
3. Telephone the White House’s Monthly Disability call
• Date of Call: Friday, August 24, 2012
• Start Time: 2:00 p.m. EDT (dial in 5 minutes early)
• Dial in: (800) 762-7308
• Code: White House Disability Call
Valarie Jarrett will be on this call, and she is President Obama’s point person. Tell her what you think.
4. Telephone the Democratic Governors’ Assn. at 202-772-5600 or email them at http://democraticgovernors.org/contact/
Steve Gold, The Disability Odyssey continues
Back issues of other Information Bulletins are available online at http://www.stevegoldada.com
with a searchable Archive at this site divided into different subjects.
As of August, 2010, Information Bulletins will also be posted on my blog located at http://stevegoldada.blogspot.com/
To contact Steve Gold directly, write to stevegoldada1@gmail.com or call 215-627-7100. Ext 227.
Monday, July 9, 2012
States Reluctant to Expand the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid. Information Bulletin # 362 (7/2012)
The Supreme Court has held that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. It also ruled that Congress cannot “coerce” States to expand the Medicaid eligibility via the ACA to cover people whose incomes are less than 133% of the federal poverty level (about $14,856 for a single person and about $30,657 for a family of four).
The purpose of this Information Bulletin is to suggest some arguments advocates can use, especially if your State is hinting that it may not expand Medicaid to cover low-income individuals and families.
First, obviously, we bet that some of the posturing States are presently taking is related to the presidential election. If Obama is re-elected, then the reality might sink in and your State might quietly accept the expansion. If Romney is elected, your State might be fantasizing that the ACA may be amended.
Second, it’s important that advocates use the State-specific data to make public arguments regarding why your State would be fiscally irresponsible not to expand its Medicaid program.
Third, since the ACA phases out special MA reimbursements for “disproportionate share” hospitals, many hospitals, which in the past received extra reimbursements because they treated large numbers of low-income patients, will lose these MA funds! Yes, one natural ally in your State are the hospitals and state-wide Hospital Association.
Fourth, this issue presents a natural potential for a “My Medicare Matters” alliance between the disability/elderly advocates and the low-income groups/AARPs/AAAs in your community. Call them up.
Here’s some national data which may be helpful.
• Between 2014 and 2022, the federal government will pay 93% of the total Medicaid expansion costs.
• The federal government will spend $931 billion for the Medicaid expansion and the States about $73 billion between 2014 and 2022.
• States currently spend $2.6 trillion on Medicaid without the ACA expansion. The additional $73 billion to cover the 133% expansion results on average in only a 2.8% increase on what States would have otherwise have spent.
• The 2.8% is probably actually larger than what States will spend because it does not reflect increased savings States will realize because of other provisions in the ACA which reduce some existing costs, e.g., state and local costs for hospital care for the uninsured.
• States savings from uncompensated care may fully cover States’ increases from the 133% Medicaid expansion.
Here are 12 States where the Governors have said either they will not implement the Medicaid expansion or are on the fence. We use a 2014-2019 timeframe.
• Alabama has 351,567 low-income people (133% of FPL) who will be denied coverage and will therefore lose $10,305 million federal dollars by not spending $470 million of State funds between 2014-19. If Alabama enrolled these people, the State’s share of Medicaid spending would increase by only 3.6%.
• Florida has 951,622 low-income people (133% of FPL) who will be denied coverage and will therefore lose $20,050 million federal dollars by not spending $1,233 million of State funds between 2014-19. If Florida enrolled these people, the State’s share of Medicaid spending would increase by only 1.9%.
• Louisiana has 366,318 low-income people (133% of FPL) who will be denied coverage and will therefore lose $7.273 million federal dollars by not spending $337 million of State funds between 2014-19. If Louisiana enrolled these people, the State’s share of Medicaid spending would increase by only 1.7%.
• Kansas has 143,445 low-income people (133% of FPL) who will be denied coverage and will therefore lose $3,477 million federal dollars by not spending $166 million of State funds between 2014-19. If Kansas enrolled these people, the State’s share of Medicaid spending would increase by only 1.7%.
• Kentucky has 329,000 low-income people (133% of FPL) who will be denied coverage and will therefore lose $11,878 million federal dollars by not spending $515 million of State funds between 2014-19. If Kentucky enrolled these people, the State’s share of Medicaid spending would increase by only 3.5%.
• Maine has 43,468 low-income people (133% of FPL) who will be denied coverage and will therefore lose $1,857 million federal dollars by not NOT spending $ -118 million of State funds between 2014-19. If Maine enrolled these people, the State Medicaid spending would actually DECREASE by 1.5%.
• Missouri has 307,872 low-income people (133% of FPL) who will be denied coverage and will therefore lose $8,395 million federal dollars by not spending $431 million of State funds between 2014-19. If Florida enrolled these people, the State’s share of Medicaid spending would increase by only 1.7%.
• North Dakota has 28,864 low-income people (133% of FPL) who will be denied coverage and will therefore lose $595 million federal dollars by not spending $32 million of State funds between 2014-19. If North Dakota enrolled these people, the State’s share of Medicaid spending would increase by only 1.4%.
• Ohio has 667,376 low-income people (133% of FPL) who will be denied coverage and will therefore lose $17,130 million federal dollars by not spending $830 million of State funds between 2014-19. If Ohio enrolled these people, the State’s share of Medicaid spending would increase by only 1.6%.
• South Carolina has 344,109 low-income people (133% of FPL) who will be denied coverage and will therefore lose $10,919 million federal dollars by not spending $470 million of State funds between 2014-19. If South Carolina enrolled these people, the State’s share of Medicaid spending would increase by only 3.6%.
• Texas has 1,798,314 low-income people (133% of FPL) who will be denied coverage and will therefore lose $52,537 million federal dollars by not spending $2,619 million of State funds between 2014-19. If Texas enrolled these people, the State’s share of Medicaid spending would increase by only 3.0%.
• Wisconsin has 205,987 low-income people (133% of FPL) who will be denied coverage and therefore lose $4,252 million federal dollars by not spending $205 million of State funds between 2014-19. If Wisconsin enrolled these people, State’s share of Medicaid spending would increase by only 0.9%.
The data for the 12 States are from the Kaiser Commission’s “Medicaid Coverage and Spending in Health Reform: National and State-by-State Results for Adults at or Below 133% FPL” at Table 1. The national data are from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “Federal Government Will Pick Up Nearly All Costs of Health Reform’s Medicaid Expansion.”
If your State is not one of the 12 listed in this Information Bulletin, Google the above Kaiser report. If you still have difficulty and want to know, email me at address below.
Steve Gold, The Disability Odyssey continues
Back issues of other Information Bulletins are available online at http://www.stevegoldada.com
with a searchable Archive at this site divided into different subjects.
As of August, 2010, Information Bulletins will also be posted on my blog located at http://stevegoldada.blogspot.com/
To contact Steve Gold directly, write to stevegoldada1@gmail.com or call 215-627-7100. Ext 227.
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