Cuomo Targeting Medicaid Spending

By Jacob Gershman
The Wall Street Journal
January 4, 2011

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is aiming to reduce the state’s Medicaid spending by billions of dollars, exceeding the size of cuts to the program proposed in past years, according to individuals with knowledge of his budget.

The Cuomo administration is considering a cut of about $2.1 billion out of the state’s projected spending on Medicaid in the upcoming fiscal year. With federal matching funds, the cut comes to more than $4 billion.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576060280154691892.html

And…

Brown to propose broad list of budget cuts

By Kevin Yamamura
The Sacramento Bee
January 3, 2011

(Gov. Jerry Brown) will propose Medi-Cal (Medicaid) savings by requiring patients to provide co-payments for services, limiting doctor visits and reducing rates paid to health providers. In Healthy Families (CHIP), which provides subsidized care for low-income children, he wants participants to pay more in premiums and co-payments while eliminating vision care.

“These would be shocking cuts if we hadn’t seen them before, but we have seen them before,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California. “This is what’s left to cut outside of the wholesale dismantling of core programs. These are bad cuts that will impact millions of Californians.”

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/01/03/3295079/brown-to-propose-broad-list-of.html

A substantial increase in eligibility qualification for the Medicaid program is a crucial measure in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), designed to decrease the numbers of Americans without insurance coverage. Now the newly-elected Democratic governors of the two most populous states in the nation intend to sharply reduce funding of their Medicaid programs. What does this say about the wisdom of the PPACA policy of using Medicaid to expand coverage?

Gov. Brown’s proposal to impose financial penalties for accessing care, placing caps on doctor visits, and further slashing payments in this already critically underfunded program can only be disastrous for the low-income patients enrolled.

Once again, this is not change we can believe in. We desperately need an improved Medicare that covers everyone.