States with high levels of poverty and unemployment have been struggling with growing Medicaid budgets during the recession, and some governors worry their financial burdens could get worse as Congress works on a comprehensive healthcare bill. These governors are especially worried about possible expansion of Medicaid, according to the Associated Press.
With the state's budget in disarray, Illinois is more than six months behind in sending payments to doctors and hospitals that are due money from a state-funded health insurance plan. Left without payment for so long, some providers have grown anxious and employed debt collectors to apply some pressure. According to the state, more than 120,000 state employees, state government retirees, or dependents who are covered by Illinois' Quality Care Health Plan. The plan owes providers more than $300 million in claims that have been delayed because of the budget gap, state officials said.
Leading moderates in both parties have retreated further from the government-backed health insurance option, echoing the argument from President Obama that the issue had been overblown and that alternatives, such as private nonprofit cooperatives, might be acceptable. Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, said the issue had become a "distraction" and Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, voiced support for a public option but said Democrats should keep the big picture in mind. Senator Olympia J. Snowe, a Republican from Maine, said the public option is politically out of the question.
Although the government regularly pays $100,000 or more for kidney transplants, it stops paying for anti-rejection drugs after only 36 months. The healthcare bill moving through the House of Representatives includes a little-noticed provision that would reverse the policy, but it is not clear whether the Senate will follow suit. The 36-month limit is one of several reimbursement anomalies that many in Congress hope to cure.
Key members of the Senate Finance Committee moved to quell the latest furor over President Obama's healthcare overhaul, discussing added identification and enforcement requirements intended to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving federal benefits. The concern is whether the proposals being worked out by congressional Democrats with Obama's support would make benefits available directly or indirectly to people who are in the United States illegally.
In the debate over a healthcare overhaul, Maryland's experience with setting hospital rates suggests the federal government could realize savings on health spending, but at a price of more regulation for health providers. President Barack Obama and some congressional Democrats are pushing for an independent agency to set Medicare payment rates as a key to controlling costs. In Maryland, an independent agency has been setting rates since 1977 for all patients, including Medicare beneficiaries, at the state's acute-care hospitals.