Governors Back Away From Medicaid Cuts Panel
June 1, 2005

By ROBERT TANNER
ASSOCIATED PRESS

Governors working on proposals to improve Medicaid decided Wednesday they won't join a federal commission that's supposed to recommend how to trim $10 billion from the joint federal-state health care program for the poor.

The executive committee of the National Governors Association unanimously agreed that governors would continue their Medicaid work independently of the commission being set up by Michael Leavitt, secretary of the Health and Human Services Department. Association staff would assist the commission, however.

Congressional Democrats last week announced they wouldn't be part of the commission being set up by Leavitt at the behest of Congress. Democratic leaders said they were opposed to the $10 billion reduction in spending.

Leavitt had listed the governors as possible appointees. But governors feel they've made so much progress on their recommendations, which include cost savings, that they would be duplicating work by joining the commission, said Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican and vice chairman of the governors association.

"We think the commission will take a bit longer to get going than the governors are. We have things ready on the table," said Huckabee, one of the leaders of the governors' Medicaid work group. "To start all over with the commission will only slow the process down."

An HHS spokeswoman, Christina Pearson, said the agency hoped to continue talking with the governors.

Huckabee and several other state leaders met privately Wednesday in Washington, teleconferencing with other governors as they continued talks on how best to pursue changes to Medicaid, which provides health care to more than 52 million people and has taken a progressively larger share of state budgets as costs and needy populations grow.

The committee adopted a policy that articulated governors' long-standing position that any cost-savings in Medicaid must be combined with steps to improve the system and to help people from needing assistance. "Comprehensive Medicaid reform must focus both on reforming Medicaid and on strengthening other forms of health insurance and long-term care coverage," the governors said.

Huckabee and Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat, plan to release the specifics behind the governors' ideas to congressional committees later this month.

Drafts of the still-incomplete proposals obtained by The Associated Press show an effort to combine cost-cutting efforts with expanded access to care. Some ideas:

• Make individuals take more responsibility for their health care, through steps such as making it more difficult for seniors to give away their assets so the government pays for nursing home care.
• Give states more flexibility when determining benefits for those who are not elderly or disabled, thus allowing states to cut costs.
• Craft or expand tax credits for individuals and small employers that encourage more people to hold onto private health insurance and long-term care insurance.
• Ask the federal government to cover more costs of the growing elderly population.

The plan put together over the past four months by a working group of governors has yet to gain formal support from a majority of all the state leaders. The working group hopes to get a green light at the governors' annual meeting next month.

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