Modern Healthcare tapped Manatt's Deborah Bachrach, a partner in the firm's Healthcare division, for an article on the Government Accountability Office's recently released report that says the CMS will spend about $778 million more for Arkansas' Medicaid expansion program than what the spending limit would have been if the cap were based on the state's actual payment rates for services under traditional Medicaid.
Modern Healthcare reports the CMS authorized a nearly $4 billion spending limit for Arkansas' three-year demonstration program, which was the first state program approved to test the private-plan approach favored by conservatives for expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Arkansas officials slammed the GAO report and repeated the argument that the state would have had to raise rates to convince providers to accept patients in an expanded Medicaid fee-for-service program.
Bachrach backed Arkansas' claim that new Medicaid enrollees would have faced healthcare access issues if the state had simply expanded traditional Medicaid and paid the traditionally low rates.