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Volume 13 Number 67 News: Medicaid Bipartisan legislation that would increase federal assistance for Medicaid consolidates the goals of a number of recent bills designed to support states as they deal with an economic downturn, a Senate aide said April 7. Sens. John D. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) April 3 introduced the Economic Recovery in Health Care Act of 2008(S.2819), which would provide $12 billion in state fiscal relief. The funds would be divided between additional Medicaid assistance and general revenue-sharing grants. The legislation also would extend or implement moratoriums for seven controversial Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services rules, as well as delay implementation of a CMS directive that would affect states' setting of eligibility criteria for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (No. 65 HCDR 04/4/08 a0b6g6w4n6). "Governors are increasingly turning to the Congress for some relief," Steven Broderick, Rockefeller's press secretary, told BNA. Rockefeller introduced legislation earlier in 2008 that would provide increases in Medicaid funding and existing Senate bills would extend or enact moratoriums for the CMS rules. The senators said when announcing the legislation that 18 states have budget shortfalls totalling $14 million for fiscal year 2008, and 21 states project shortfalls of more $32 million in 2009, according to the National Governors Association. Estimates of the fiscal impact of the Medicaid rules range from $15 billion over five years, as reported by CMS, to as much as $50 billion over five years, according to a report by the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. "Children don't stop getting sick and seniors don't suddenly stop needing long-term care services just because the economy slows," Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Health Care, said in a statement. "Instead, the need for access to Medicaid and CHIP grows during times of economic uncertainty. In order to prevent the same kind of health care crisis that working families experienced during the 2001-2003 recession, we must provide states with federal relief--and postpone the draconian Medicaid and CHIP regulations." The Economy Recovery in Health Care Act of 2008 will be referred to the Senate Finance Committee, but no time line for its markup has been set, Broderick said. Two Rounds of Funding States would qualify for the funding proposed in the legislation based on their average rank among the states in three categories: reduction in employment, increases in food stamp participation, and increases in foreclosure rates. In the first round of funding, states with an average rank in the top 28 states for the three funding criteria would qualify for increases in their federal Medicaid assistance percentages, which determine the federal contribution to Medicaid. The increases would last for five quarters beginning April 1, 2008. The second round would begin Oct. 1, 2008 and include the states from the first round, as well as states with ranking in the top 38 states. The second round funding would last for three quarters. The American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living, an association of more than 10,000 assisted living, nursing facility, developmentally-disabled, and subacute care providers, April 7 applauded the bill. "Medicaid is consistently one of the first programs targeted for cuts at the onset of state budget shortfalls, and Congress should move swiftly to support this initiative before there are problems--not after they become evident," Bruce Yarwood, president and CEO of the AHCA/NCAL, said in a statement. House Panel Markup On April 9, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health is scheduled to mark up its own Medicaid bill, H.R. 5613, the proposed Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008, according to an April 7 announcement. The House legislation would place a temporary one-year moratorium on seven administration-imposed Medicaid regulations "that would make significant cuts to the program over the next five years," according to an announcement from committee Democrats. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Rep. Timothy Murphy (R-Pa.) introduced H.R. 5613 on March 14. Their bill would extend or enact moratoriums on the regulations until April 1, 2009. Existing moratoriums on four of the regulations expire in May and June of 2008.
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