Obama Offers One More Reason States Shouldn't Rush to Expand Medicaid
Tucked away in the president’s latest budget was a recommendation to delay scheduled cuts in payments to hospitals that treat large numbers of the uninsured patients and therefore provide a disproportionate amount of uncompensated care. The cuts in Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments were enacted under Obamacare, and the call to postpone them constitutes another admission that Obamacare’s grand plans and promises are falling short. More important, it provides another reason for states not to undertake the Medicaid expansion encouraged by Obamacare.
Under Obamacare, DSH payments are to be cut by $18.1 billion over a ten-year period, starting in FY 2014. The rationale behind the cuts was that, as the new coverage provisions of Obamacare — the subsidies and Medicaid expansion in conjunction with the individual mandate — go into effect, there would be less demand on hospitals to serve the uninsured. In its amicus brief to the Supreme Court case, the American Hospital Association argued the DSH cuts were part of such a “grand bargain.” But, the Supreme Court decision, while keeping the individual mandate in place, made the mandatory Medicaid expansion optional for the states. That puts the administration’s grand coverage plans and the grand bargain for hospitals at risk, and the postponement of these cuts makes it all the less likely. The administration has all but admitted the grand deal is falling apart and the proposed hospital cuts are unrealistic. Maybe it is time for the states to tell the hospitals to shift their attention to the real problem: Obamacare. Read the rest from Heritage >>
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