Can Va. Find “Middle Ground” on Medicaid Expansion? Speaking to a packed room filled with green-clad protesters – and one activist sporting a tri-corned hat with a bell in hand – a national expert on Medicaid reform told a Virginia legislative panel that the Old Dominion isn’t the only-Republican led state grappling with the issue. “You can have any kind of healthcare program you want,” said Vernon K. Smith, the former head of Michigan’s Medicaid program, who started with the program in 1967 when Mitt Romney’s father, George, was governor. Though it’s often spoken of as a “federal-state” program, he noted, “In reality, it’s your program.” The soft-spoken Smith, now a private consultant, set a collegial tone for the second meeting of the state legislature’s 10-member Medicaid Innovation and Reform Commission. “There has never been a time when Medicaid has been more in the spotlight politically than it is right now,” said Smith. Hundreds of green-clad opponents of Medicaid expansion and Obamacare rallied in Capitol Square before the meeting, and then later packed the General Assembly room. There was no public comment this time around. According to the Times-Dispatch, legislators and state health officials say they’ve “made major strides in getting federal permission to carry out significant reforms to the program” which would add an estimated 270,000 Virginians to the state Medicaid rolls. Sen. Emmett W. Hanger Jr., R-August, and chairman of the commission, is a proponent of the expansion despite opposition from some fellow Republicans. “I’d say we are a little more than halfway there,” Hanger said of making the kinds of reforms that would lead the commission to recommend Medicaid expansion to the entire General Assembly next year. Among them: Coordinating the care of so-called “dual eligible” patients who qualify for Medicaid and Medicare benefits. But Republican panel members – including Del. John M. O’Bannon III of Henrico – questioned whether the federal government might leave the state holding the bill despite three years of guaranteeing 100 percent payment for Medicaid expansion, and no less than 90 percent for three years thereafter. “Once you enroll these individuals, isn’t there an expectation that you continue to provide services to these individuals?” asked Del. R. Steven Landes, R-August, the commission’s vice chairman. Consultant Smith agreed that “once adopted, it’s very difficult to un-adopt it.” Gov. Bob McDonnell, while opposing expansion without significant reforms to Virginia’s Medicaid program, said yesterday of the commission’s work: “If they say ‘done,’ Medicaid expansion goes into place.” The commission will meet again in October and December, with a public hearing expected before the next meeting. Virginia is among more than half a dozen states with Republican governors, legislatures, or both, which are still weighing their options after the U.S. Supreme Court made expansion an option as part of its 2012 ruling on the constitutionality of the 2010 Affordable Care Act.. timesdispatch/news/va-among-states-seeking-middle-ground-on-medicaid-expansion/article_a9b52282-d25c-5b5c-8554-3363a1cfd509.html
Posted on: Wed, 21 Aug 2013 20:29:26 +0000
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