The Bush Administration has proposed sweeping new Medicaid regulations that will shift costs for this federal state program on to Michigan.  The proposed regulations will cost the Michigan Medicaid program $3.9 billion. A cut of this magnitude would severely cripple Medicaid and would balloon a budget deficit already predicted to be $472 million.

The Administration’s seven proposed regulations reduce funding for safety net providers by placing cost limits on government providers, eliminating Medicaid’s graduate medical education (GME) payments, restricting provider taxes.  Four of the proposed changes in Medicaid would reduce the scope of services available to Medicaid recipients (restriction of rehabilitation services, elimination of transportation services for school-based services, restriction of hospital based outpatient services, and restriction of case management services)

The House of Representatives, with Michigan’s Congressman John Dingell in the lead, has passed legislation to postpone these onerous regulations. The Senate needs to take action to follow the house lead to block these regulations from talking effect. The Health Authority Board supports efforts to block the proposed regulations.

Community health advocates are urging Nancy Pelosi, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker, to keep the regulatory moratorium on seven Medicaid regulations in the supplemental spending bill soon to be debated in the House. Last week, House leaders reached a tentative deal with Senate leaders under which three of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Medicaid regulations – targeted case management, provider taxes, and outpatient clinics – would be removed from the Medicaid moratorium package in the supplemental appropriations bill. Four other Medicaid rule moratoria would remain in the supplemental bill.

Please call your congressman or Speaker Pelosi to register your opinion. You can email Pelosi at AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov or call the Capitol switchboard toll free at 866-240-9281.