Last week, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services crunched some numbers and stuck them in an envelope addressed to Florida Medicaid Director at the Agency for Health Care Administration Justin Senior.
“We have preliminarily concluded that that 2015-2016 funding should be at
approximately $1 billion … to maintain stability while the system transitions,”
CMS Director Vikki Wachino wrote, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
What’s being proffered here is that the state basically needs to expand its Medicaid
program because the feds are about to phase the LIP program out. In future
budgets, CMS says, the state will need to whittle its previous experience with
$2.2 billion in LIP funds down to something more reasonable, like $600 million.
This tourniquet is for real.
In its May 21 letter, the Times reports, the feds are calling the state out for
its insensitivity. Basically, this is what the ACA was supposed to do, but
Republicans refuse to allow, even though, says the CMS, expansion could bring
“significant benefits to low income Floridians and the Florida health care system.”
Meanwhile, a blip on the news transom revealed that there are maneuvers from on high,okay from presidential hopeful Jeb Bush – that there are ways to privatize Medicaid like he did with a pilot program in 2005 with extremely overrated success; also, maybe everybody should wear Apple Watches to track their wellbeing, because that sounds like a good idea. The world is going crazy.