Medicaid Expansion

via Alice Ollstein of Talking Points Memo:

A state court in Maine has ruled that Gov. Paul LePage (R) must submit the paperwork necessary to move forward on expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to cover about 70,000 more low-income people in the state.

In her ruling, state judge Michaela Murphy slammed LePage’s health department for unilaterally blocking the expansion’s implementation since voters overwhelmingly approved it by ballot initiative last November.

“The Court concludes that the Commissioner’s complete failure to act cannot be considered substantial compliance,” she wrote, ordering the governor to submit the necessary paperwork to the federal government by June 11.

It wasn’t immediately known whether LePage planned to appeal the decision.

PREDICTION: Yeah, he will. He's out of office in seven months, and I'm willing to bet he's gonna continue doing everything possible to drag this out until his replacement takes office in January.

Apparently it still has to be kicked back to the state Assembly for a final vote, but it appears to be a done deal at last:

The Virginia Senate just passed Medicaid expansion, which three Republicans joining all 19 Democrats voting in favor. The House, which already passed expansion, has to vote again. We'll have more later, but here's the backstory. https://t.co/ldFEb5vYyt

— Jeffrey Young (@JeffYoung) May 30, 2018

There's one downer, of course:

Elections have consequences: To get enough GOP votes, this Medicaid expansion includes a work requirement and premiums above the poverty line, which will cut into coverage gains. Virginia must continue the fight.

— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) May 30, 2018

I know this is like the third "It's on the ballot!" post I've written regarding Medicaid expansion in Idaho, but this time it appears to be for real...almost:

BOISE — A Medicaid expansion proposal has passed the signature threshold, officials confirmed on Thursday, but said further review is needed before it gets on the November ballot.

Ada County Chief Deputy Clerk Phil McGrane says county clerks across the state have verified roughly 58,000 signatures that organizers submitted earlier this month.

The effort needed at least 56,192 signatures to qualify. However, those signatures must also come from 6 percent of the registered voters in at least 18 of Idaho’s 35 legislative districts.

McGrane says it’ll be up to the state to determine if the signatures meet the legislative district requirements.

Reclaim Idaho, the group that organized the Medicaid expansion effort, did not immediately return a request for comment.

Sadly, this is pretty much exactly what I've been expecting:

Sen. Mike SHIRKEY (R-ClarkLake) said today he's hammered out an agreement with the administration and the House on creating work requirements for Medicaid recipients.

Speaking during a taping of "Off The Record," Shirkey said, "We have a deal." All sides have signed off on the exemptions to the work requirement, but he didn't get into all fo them pending a formal announcement coming as soon as later this week.

From the wording of this, it sounds an awful lot like "all sides" appears to refer to Republican Senator Shirkey, the rest of the Republican State Senate, the Republican State House and the Republican Governor.

Shirkey confirmed that the 29-hour job requirement in the Senate bill has been pared back to 20 to which he says, "I was hoping Michigan could take a leadership position and set a new standard for that." But rather than jeopardize the entire package, he compromised.

Two big developments (or in one case, a lack of development) out of Virginia this evening.

First: Just yesterday I was noting that it looked as though after 8 years, Virginia's state legislature might finally be going ahead and expanding Medicaid under the ACA as soon as today:

The stage is set for a showdown in the Virginia Senate on Tuesday over a budget compromise negotiated by Senate Finance Co-Chairman Emmett Hanger, R-Augusta, and House Appropriations Chairman Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, to expand the state’s Medicaid program and pay for the state’s share through a new tax on hospital revenues that also would boost Medicaid payments for inpatient provider care.

Unfortunately...that didn't happen:

Governor Northam Statement on Virginia Senate Budget Process

Several stories like this throughout Monday afternoon/evening (via Michael Martz of the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

The stage is set for a showdown in the Virginia Senate on Tuesday over a budget compromise negotiated by Senate Finance Co-Chairman Emmett Hanger, R-Augusta, and House Appropriations Chairman Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, to expand the state’s Medicaid program and pay for the state’s share through a new tax on hospital revenues that also would boost Medicaid payments for inpatient provider care.

(The article goes into all the other non-Medicaid related stuff in the budget as well, of course, although some of it is obviously healthcare-related.)

*(To be honest, all of these types of bills--work requirements for Medicaid, drug testing for welfare benefits, photo ID for voting--have at least a tinge of racism to them no matter what, but at least this one isn't blatantly racist anymore).

This just in off the AP newswire...

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The sponsor of proposed Medicaid work requirements said Monday that lawmakers are removing a provision to exempt recipients who live in Michigan counties with high unemployment, saying it would have been too difficult to administer and denying allegations of racism.

Republican Sen. Mike Shirkey of Clarklake also told The Associated Press that the proposed 29-hour-a week workforce engagement requirement for able-bodied adults is being lowered to “very close” to 20 weeks. That is in line with the three states that have enacted Medicaid work laws and with Michigan’s work requirement for food assistance beneficiaries.

A week or so ago, I noted that Republicans in my home state of Michigan have come up with a clever way of having their (chocolate) cake and eating the (vanilla) cake too. As first noted by Nancy Kaffer of the Detroit Free Press:

Although HB 897 threatens to end Medicaid benefits for hundreds of thousands living elsewhere in the state, it includes exemptions for people who live in counties with an unemployment rate of more than 8.5%, like the ones Schmidt represents.

Live in Detroit? You're out of luck.

The city's unemployment rate is higher than 8.5%, but the unemployment rate in surrounding Wayne County is just 5.5% — meaning Detroiters living in poverty, with a dysfunctional transit system that makes it harder to reach good-paying jobs, won't qualify for that exemption. The same is true in Flint and the state's other struggling cities.

...which brings me to today's Detroit News, via Jonathan Oosting:

Senate uses salary threat to push Medicaid work plan

Lansing — Michigan’s Republican-led Senate is pressuring Gov. Rick Snyder to back sweeping changes to the state’s Medicaid health insurance system, including proposed work requirements and a tougher 48-month benefit limit for the Healthy Michigan plan.

I've trashed CMS Administrator Seema Verma many times for her callous and backward-logic driven push to impose pointless, counterproductive work requirements on ACA Medicaid expansion enrollees. However, it appears that even she has her limits when it comes to treating people terribly:

The Trump administration has drawn a red line on Medicaid cuts. There are some proposals that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services won’t approve.

In a letter on Monday, CMS Administrator Seema Verma told Kansas officials that her agency would not approve the state’s request to impose lifetime limits, which would have capped a person’s eligibility at three years, after which they could no longer be covered by the program.

Verma noted that the administration had approved proposals by other states to cut off benefits for Medicaid enrollees only if they fail to meet certain work requirements.

Pages

Advertisement