CNN Money quoted Manatt’s Jocelyn Guyer, a managing director with Manatt Health, for an article on the far-reaching effects that the new healthcare bill would have on Medicaid.
As CNN Money reports, one aspect of the bill is to allow states to receive a lump sum, known as a block grant, but only to cover pregnant women and parents. In addition, the Senate and the House would slow the growth rate of Medicaid spending by pegging the annual funding increases to an inflation index.
Looking longer term, switching the growth rate to a standard inflation index more than doubles the magnitude of the cuts resulting from turning Medicaid into a block grant or per capita cap program, according to calculations done by Manatt Health. That could mean hundreds of billions of dollars of deeper cuts for some states under the Senate bill.
"States will face intense fiscal pressure to reduce benefits, cut provider rates and keep higher-cost people off Medicaid," said Guyer.
Read the article here.