Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler has been looking at the numerous changes called for in the US Senate proposal on replacing the Affordable Care Act. His first concern, is the gradual reduction in the amount of money states receive from the federal government to pay for Medicaid. Kreidler says the plan calls for ninety percent funding until 2020, at which time it begins to be reduced until finally hitting just fifty percent.
He figures that will mean 600,000 low-income and disabled, and those in nursing homes in Washington will eventually lose their Medicaid coverage.
Kreidler says it’s unlikely that the state could make up the difference:
“If you want to make up for it with state money as you take it down to essentially 50 cents on the dollar, it would be every year about 1.3 billion dollars. Given all the challenges the legislature has right now in trying to fund education and meet the McCleary decision, you obviously have a problem in coming up with those kind of dollars.”
Kreidler says ironically, efforts to save money by cutting back on federal funding will have the effect of passing on costs to those with insurance, when those that lose their coverage need to get medical care:
“People in emergency situations for certain wind up getting that health care, they’re not covered by insurance, then those costs are pushed off, so other payers, meaning people with other types of insurance are cost shifted, the result of them not having insurance.”
As for reports that the latest round of insurance rates under ACA have climbed an average of 22 percent, Kreidler says that can be attributed, in part, to the lack of certainty of the future of health care created by the new Republican plans put for by the congress.
