Highway bill could cut $1.1B from state Medicaid program

Jindal administration leaders on Wednesday warned that a proposal being considered by Congress during final negotiations over a massive transportation spending plan could strip more than $650 million in federal funding from Louisiana’s Medicaid program over two years, The Associated Press reports. The cut could shutter services and force deep reductions to spending on hospitals that care for the poor and uninsured in the fiscal year that begins July 1. Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein says that if the Medicaid cut is approved, the state would eliminate programs that care for women with breast and cervical cancer, provide hospice care, and offer adult dentures to the poor and uninsured. Steep funding cuts also would be levied across the LSU public hospitals and rural hospitals, and Greenstein says the rates paid to the doctors, clinics and other health providers who care for Medicaid patients would be slashed by 10%. “This would have some very serious consequences,” Greenstein said in a conference call with reporters and Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater, Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal’s top budget adviser. Greenstein and Rainwater estimate $1.1 billion would have to be cut from the $7.7 billion Medicaid program in the coming fiscal year, when state and federal matching dollars are included in the calculation, to account for the change being considered in the highway bill. To read more about the proposal, click here.