What is Medicaid?
Medicaid is an assistance program for low-income people of any age. Patients usually pay no cost for medical services but sometimes may have a small copayment. It is a federal-state program, varying from state to state. States and local governments operate within guidelines set by the federal government. The Children’s Health Insurance Program, which is known as SoonerCare in Oklahoma, falls under this program. An aspect of the Affordable Care Act allows for a Medicaid expansion. Oklahoma is one of 19 states rejecting the expansion, according to Families USA. Some state leaders are considering an expansion of Insure Oklahoma.
Insure Oklahoma is a state-subsidized insurance plan for low-income, employed Oklahoma residents. A person must be working to qualify for the plan, which is built through private insurers.
Posted: Saturday, May 21, 2016 12:00 am
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Updated: 1:19 am, Sat May 21, 2016.
TulsaWorld.com
READ: “Medicaid cuts could force most Oklahoma nursing homes to close, health care group says”
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On Monday, the Oklahoma Health Care Authority is considering 25 percent across-the-board cuts to Medicaid providers, which a state nursing home group calls “a humanitarian crisis.”
An agenda for the authority’s regularly scheduled meeting in Oklahoma City shows several items proposing cuts and adjustments to Medicaid reimbursement rates. This comes after five years of cutting $500 million from the state’s Medicaid program, mostly by reducing rates to providers and restricting services to SoonerCare members. In the past 10 years, the agency has experienced $1 billion in cuts.
This latest rate decrease is in anticipation of $64 million in cuts required by the end of June. It reduces federal matching funds, which will total a loss of $164 million in state and federal funding for Oklahoma Medicaid.
For months, the Oklahoma Association of Health Care Providers — which represents the state’s nursing homes — has been warning of catastrophic affects these reductions will bring.
The association predicts nine out of 10 nursing homes would be forced to close, displacing 16,800 residents and eliminating 16,900 jobs.
“The state of Oklahoma is on the verge of facilitating a humanitarian crisis,” stated the group’s board president, Tandie Hastings, in a news release.
“If the Legislature allows these cuts to go forward, we will see a full-scale collapse of our health care industry. Vulnerable seniors will be displaced from their homes and left without care. Oklahomans will be forced to drive to other states to find a hospital that will actually deliver babies. The services relied on by low-income children will be devastated.
“This is a catastrophe unfolding in slow motion. If our lawmakers allow this to happen, it will be a national example of government-led neglect and a signal that Oklahomans do not take care of their elderly, their sick and their poor.”
Hasting said a proposed $1.50 per pack cigarette tax under consideration by lawmakers “is the only plan that has emerged to date which can raise the revenue we need to prevent these cuts.”
It may get worse. Agency officials have stated another $100 million reduction may be in store for next fiscal year’s budget.
Ginnie Graham 918-581-8376
ginnie.graham@tulsaworld.com
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