Court Rebuffs Counties on Long-term Care Bill

By Jon Greenberg on Friday, January 16, 2009.

The state supreme court has ruled that counties must continue to pay half the costs of long term care under the Medicaid program. The ruling means state budget writers will not have to deal with what could have been a hundred million dollars in new spending.

New Hampshire Public Radio’s Jon Greenberg has more.

The counties had asked the court to throw out a 2007 law that gave them the lion’s share of the Medicaid bill for low income seniors in county nursing homes or home based care. The counties argued, they had been saddled with an unfunded mandate, a violation of the state’s constitution.

But the justices said counties had been paying for such care for decades, even centuries, and the 2007 law created no new obligation. They also noted that lawmakers promised to cap the amount the counties would pay in the future. Betsy Miller, head of the New Hampshire Association of Counties, says she’s disappointed but feels the court has put the legislature on notice to keep that promise.

Miller: There’s a possibility out there in a couple of years, if you don’t act to protect the local property tax payer, that there very well might be a 28-A violation.

28 A is the unfunded mandate provision. Miller says there’s already a bill at the state house to limit the counties’ financial exposure through 2013.

For NHPR News, I’m Jon Greenberg.