Tagged: Medicaid

State and Managed Care company officials met today with the executive council to discuss the contract that would change the state’s Medicaid Program. The councilors have serious concerns, and many questions.

The $2.2 billion dollar proposed contract is the biggest in the history of the state. Supporters say Managed Medicaid would streamline services for the some 130,000 people in the program. Health-care providers worry the new contract may hurt their patients and their business.

Executive Councilors, like Chris Sununu, are equally concerned.

Thursday, members of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee considered a bill that would ban public funding of facilities that provide abortion. Opponents of the bill, which has already been approved by the House, say it could jeopardize $700 million in federal Medicaid funds. The bill's sponsor, Republican of Rochester Warren Groen, says preventing the state from funding abortion is a smarter way to use scare with public dollars.

"The goal here is efficient use of taxpayer dollars so that the taxpayer dollars can be focused in the best way to provide healthcare for women in the most holistic way,"  says Groen.

Groen says that hospitals and clinics in New Hampshire could create separate business entities to to provide abortion.

When the Supreme Court hears arguments over President Obama's health care law next week, one item on the table will be a program that has been in place for nearly 50 years.

Medicaid, a joint federal-state program that provides health care for the poor, was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson. Under the Affordable Care Act, it will be greatly expanded and provide coverage for millions of uninsured, including low-income adults without children.

Opponents say the expansion is unconstitutional because it challenges states' authority and forces them to spend more. And in Florida and other states, there is already a lot about Medicaid that officials don't like.

New Hampshire will be the first state in the country to receive new Medicaid grant money to help seniors and people with disabilities remain in their homes.

The state will receive $26.5 million over three years through the Affordable Care Act.

The goal is to help states shift from institutional care to home and community-based services.

In 2009, 41 percent of New Hampshire’s Medicaid money was spent on community-based services.

That will increase to 47 percent in 2013 with the new grant money. 

Attorneys for the state and for ten N.H. hospitals are in federal court this week. The hospitals are suing the state over major cuts in Medicaid they say are impacting medical services for low income patients.

Ten of the state’s largest hospitals say that $130 million in state Medicaid cuts is not only forcing hospitals to cut services to the poor, but they are also illegal. Gordon Macdonald is the hospital’s attorney.

“The state didn’t consider what effect these rates would have on access to care for New Hampshire citizens. And at some point the Medicaid rates get so low that providers cannot sustain it.”