Medicaid Expansion in Nebraska and Kansas
With 29 states and DC having already opted to expand their Medicaid coverage, other states are aiming to join the trend.
- The decision to expand Medicaid continues to be a legal struggle for many states. The decision could substantially impact the revenue cycle of state’s hospitals for better or worse depending on the outcome. With 29 states and the District of Columbia having already opted to expand their Medicaid coverage, other states are aiming to join the trend.
Nebraska Seeks Family Planning Medicaid Expansion
In Omaha, Nebraska, Senator Jeremy Nordquist introduced a bill to expand coverage of family planning services to beneficiaries at or below 185 percent of the state poverty line. According to the proposal on the Nebraska Legislature’s website, the bill would save approximately $28 million.
The proposal was introduced on January 8, 2015, and it aims to introduce the requirement for the state Department of Health and Human Services to submit a proposal to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to provide funding for family planning services.
“States who have obtained family planning waivers have saved millions of dollars in their own Medicaid programs,” Nordquist said on the Nebraska Legislature’s website. “A focus on prevention in women’s health will create healthier families and communities and will reduce healthcare costs, as well as social and economic costs in the long run.”
The proposed bill would also obtain $50,000 in funding for education and outreach programs for medically underprivileged women.
As previously reported, women are often the most impacted by financially-caused unmet healthcare needs. The report showed that 24.4 percent of women were more likely to report feeling they are not adequately covered for medical needs than their male counterparts and 40.2 percent of women report having unmet healthcare needs than men. Most of the unmet needs were for contraception and family planning.
Currently,29 states have already expanded their Medicaid services to cover family planning. This includes Indiana, which expanded its Medicaid program as of February 1, 2015.
Kansas Drafts Medicaid Expansion Bill
According to an article on KSN.com, a Kansas NBC affiliate, by the Associated Press a House Committee in Kansas has drafted a bill to expand the state’s Medicaid program to poor and disabled individuals.
The Vision 2020 Committee introduced the bill to the house on February 9, 2015. The bill proposes to tax hospitals and healthcare providers to raise state matching funds and access extra federal money. It would also require Medicaid beneficiaries to work if they are able.
If implemented, the Medicaid expansion would cover approximately 169,000 Kansans to cover beneficiaries with incomes up to 183 percent of the poverty line, according to an article by Peter Hancock on Laurence-Journal World.
The Medicaid program in Kansas has often faced financial challenges as reported previously on HealthITAnalytics.com. In the first half of 2014, the insurers providing this coverage lost $72.6 million which piled on to the previous year’s $110 million deficit.
