Medicaid

Advocates opened up a new front in the fight against the House GOP's budget cuts: the interests of U.S. children. The children's advocacy group First Focus estimated Tuesday that the House Budget Committee's sequester-replacement bill would amount to "tens of billions of dollars" in cuts to programs that fund healthcare, insurance and nutrition assistance for children.

The attack was compounded by a letter to members of Congress from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which said the reconciliation package fails a "basic moral test." The Reverend Stephen E. Blaire, who leads a conference committee on Human Development, asked for a "circle of protection around programs that serve poor and vulnerable people and communities."

"Poor and vulnerable people do not have powerful lobbyists to advocate their interests, but they have the most compelling needs," he wrote.

The letter cited cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and changes to the Child Tax Credit as especially harmful.

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Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) warned that Medicaid fraud will rise should the Supreme Court strike down the 2010 healthcare law.

"The Affordable Care Act made a significant contribution to federal anti-fraud efforts, both in terms of increased resources and authority to enhance oversight," Kucinich said during a committee hearing Wednesday. 

He added that "aggressive federal anti-fraud activities … will be compromised" if the Supreme Court strikes down the law. 

His remarks came as Republicans attacked the healthcare law's expansion of state Medicaid programs.

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Dozens of protestors, including actor Noah Wyle, were arrested Monday afternoon following a demonstration in the Cannon House office building.

Capitol Police spokeswoman Lt. Kimberly Schneider confirmed that officers arrested Wyle and 75 others for unlawful conduct, demonstrating in a Capitol building.

Hundreds of people reportedly filled the building’s rotunda Monday, demonstrating against cuts in Medicaid proposed by Republican House leadership. Many of the protesters were members of ADAPT, a grass-roots disability rights organization.

The demonstration was part of a three-day series of actions Monday through Wednesday that aim to “highlight the failure of the federal government to protect community based services for very low income people with disabilities who rely on Medicaid,” according to an ADAPT statement.

Wyle, an Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated actor for his work on the television series "ER," was slated to join hundreds of disability rights activists in the 7th annual ADAPT Fun Run for Disability Rights Monday in Upper Senate Park to raise funds for the organization’s campaign to preserve Medicaid.

A member of ADAPT’s leadership confirmed Wyle’s support of and participation in Monday’s protest, and subsequent arrest.

States would have lost more than $500 billion over the past decade if Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) proposed Medicaid cuts had been in place, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said Friday.

While most fiscal estimates look ahead to future cuts, CBPP tried to demonstrate the magnitude of Ryan’s proposal by calculating how much money states would have lost if Ryan’s proposal had taken effect in 2001. The hypothetical provides 10 years of real spending data, rather than estimates.

Under Ryan’s plan, states would have gotten 31 percent less federal money over the past 10 years, according to CBPP. Arizona would have taken a bigger cut than any other state, at about 61 percent.

The analysis helps illustrate that Ryan’s plan wouldn’t keep up with the needs of the Medicaid program, CBPP said. The House Budget Committee chairman has proposed converting federal Medicaid funding into a block grant to the states and giving the states more power to drop people from the program and scale back their benefits.

The federal grants would get bigger each year, but they wouldn’t keep up with the rise in healthcare costs, CBPP said. As a result, millions of people would become uninsured.

The GOP lawmaker said his Medicaid overhaul would help poor people just as former President Clinton's welfare reforms did.

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The success of the healthcare law's massive Medicaid expansion could hinge on new regulations expected as early as next week.

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States should boost their Medicaid spending as the economy improves and their budgets begin to grow back, the nursing home industry said Friday.

Many states made significant Medicaid cuts in 2009 and 2010, to help keep their spending in line with falling tax revenues. But after those two years of decline, every state saw its tax revenues increase last year, according to data released Thursday by the Census Bureau.

Nursing homes said states should restore Medicaid funding as their budgets continue to improve.

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The House Republican budget released Tuesday would slash federal Medicaid spending by $810 billion over 10 years and give states more flexibility to run the program as they see fit.

The proposed cut is bigger than the $771 billion cut Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) proposed in 2011, but far less than the $1.8 trillion in savings achieved under similar "block-granting" legislation introduced this month by the conservative Republican Study Committee. While Ryan recommends transforming the open-ended federal funding commitment for the program into a block grant indexed for inflation and population growth, the RSC bill achieves greater savings by freezing spending at 2012 levels.

"Offering states more flexibility for their Medicaid beneficiaries will remove the stigma recipients face and allow them to take advantage of a range of options," says a summary of the budget proposal. "Several of the nation's governors have made innovative proposals to fix Medicaid. This budget pursues reforms in this direction."

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The federal Medicaid agency awarded $75 million in funding Tuesday for a program that looks for cheaper, more effective ways to treat mental illness.

Eleven states and Washington, D.C., were selected to take part in the demonstration program, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said. States will use the money to provide Medicaid coverage for inpatient psychiatric hospitals.

Medicaid does not pay for mentally ill patients to be admitted to psychiatric hospitals, largely because of historical concerns that states would warehouse those patients in large facilities. Medicaid patients who are experiencing a mental-health emergency — such as suicidal or homicidal thoughts — are instead admitted to hospital emergency rooms.

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The Obama administration confirmed Friday that it will stop funding a Medicaid family-planning and preventive care program for 130,000 low-income Texas women after the state barred Planned Parenthood and other "affiliates of abortion providers" from participating.

The Health and Human Services Department will "let Texas know that that waiver will not be extended," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Friday, according to The Associated Press. 

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