Modern Healthcare quoted Manatt’s Deborah Bachrach, a partner with Manatt Health, in an article about the effects of capping Medicaid payments below actual costs, as proposed in the House’s ACA Repeal Bill.
The publication reports that some fear states would not be in a financial position to handle unanticipated higher costs due to epidemics, natural disasters, medical advances such as the new hepatitis C drugs, or demographic changes such as the growth of the frail elderly population.
In addition, once the capped payment system was in place, Congress could decide to ratchet down the formula to produce greater cost savings, thus squeezing states, providers and patients even more.
“It would become a nonflexible and non-dynamic funding mechanism,” Bachrach said. “That's a very complicated, convoluted issue, and it will take some time for governors to analyze the particulars and respond in a cogent fashion.”
Read the article here.