Vague on details, health official rejects GOP govs' Medicaid pitch

President Obama’s Medicaid chief shot down a proposal gaining traction among Republican governors to transform Medicaid into block-grant payments as the states face mounting costs running the healthcare program for poor individuals.

As states are facing massive budget deficits, more than half of the nation’s governors are looking for relief from a requirement in the new healthcare reform law to maintain Medicaid eligibility through 2014. Many Republican governors are pushing for Medicaid block grants, instead of a federal match, because they say it would provide them with the maximum flexibility to address budget shortfalls while ensuring the healthcare safety net remains in place for low-income individuals.

However, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Don Berwick, stressing his support for states' flexibility, told reporters on Tuesday that block grants aren’t on the table.

“I think we need to make sure that Medicaid beneficiaries get access to the kind of care that could really help them them, and I think we’ll be open to ideas, but block grants are not something” the administration would support, Berwick told reporters at the Federation of American Hospitals (FAH) conference.

When pressed for an explanation of why the administration opposes block grants, Berwick declined.

“That’s all I have to say about that right now,” he said.

Democratic governors expressed skepticism over block grants during a National Governors Association meeting last weekend. Delaware Gov. Jack Markell (D) said it would limit access to healthcare in a time of economic crisis.

“Funding would remain level as demand’s increasing, leavings states with one option – cutting services at a time when they’re most needed,” Markell said on Sunday

Mississippi governor and possible Republican presidential candidate Haley Barbour threw his support behind a Medicaid block-grant program Tuesday morning.

“Most governors would take that in a heartbeat,” Barbour said at the FAH conference. “We would make Medicaid better. We would make Medicaid less expensive.”

Barbour said he would bring the same message to the House Energy and Commerce Committee Tuesday morning in a hearing on states’ Medicaid burdens.