Supreme Court Holds Fate of Medicaid

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Two cases before the Supreme Court have the potential to effectively do what Republican lawmakers have tried and failed: transform Medicaid into a block grant program for states with few enforceable federal rules about how they provide health coverage for the poor.
That outcome may not be the most likely scenario. But legal experts say no one can predict what the high court will do — particularly because many were surprised that the Supreme Court agreed to consider the Medicaid portion of the big multistate challenge to President Barack Obama’s health reform law in the first place.

Florida Cuts Rates to Providers

TALLAHASSEE -- The Agency for Persons with Disabilities implemented a 4 percent provider rate reduction July 1, as required by the Florida Legislature.
Additionally, the law requires a cost plan freeze for all waiver recipients. No one may increase their waiver services unless they are in a crisis situation. The Florida Legislature has mandated that the group bring its Medicaid waiver expenditures within is appropriation.

States Brace for Medicaid Cuts

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration injected billions of dollars into Medicaid, the nation’s low-income health program, as the recession deepened two years ago. The money runs out at the end of this month, and benefits are being cut for millions of people, even though unemployment has increased.
From New Jersey to California, state officials are bracing for the end to more than $90 billion in federal largess specifically designated for Medicaid. To hold down costs, states are cutting Medicaid payments to doctors and hospitals, limiting benefits for Medicaid recipients, reducing the scope of covered services, requiring beneficiaries to pay larger co-payments and expanding the use of managed care.

Editorial: State Must Make Case for Facilities

The timing is impeccable: Just as national "Sunshine Week" is about to get under way, calling attention to the undeniable need to pry open the workings of government, the state has been ordered to turn over records of developmentally disabled residents at a local facility that long has been the subject of concern in the community.
For years, state officials have resisted efforts to obtain confidential records from two institutions for the developmentally disabled that legal advocates say will prove residents have languished there. And one of those facilities is the Wassaic campus of the Taconic Developmental Disabilities Service Organization.