Louisiana’s health secretary says the state expects to receive federal approval this week for the latest version of six LSU hospital privatization contracts, which were rewritten in hopes of keeping Medicaid dollars flowing to the deals.
The Associated Press reports Health and Hospitals Secretary Kathy Kliebert told state senators today that she’s been encouraged in conversations with the federal Medicaid agency that the rewritten deals won’t hit any roadblocks.
“We were given assurance actually about two weeks ago that they were in approved state and that we should be hearing something this week to get the final approval. We received no questions whatsoever,” Kliebert told the Senate Finance Committee.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services didn’t immediately return a request by The AP today for an update on the status of its review.
If the federal agency signs off on the financing arrangements, that would end high-dollar concerns that the hospital privatization deals could fall apart and the state could be on the hook for repaying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal money spent on them. Repayment figures have ranged from $200 million to more than $500 million.
Gov. Bobby Jindal privatized nearly all the LSU-run hospitals and their clinics over the last year through no-bid contracts. But his administration didn’t first get federal approval for the financing deals, which rely heavily on federal Medicaid money. Read the full story.
