January 1, 2015
By Will Weissert,
The White House’s signature health care law is loathed by Texas’ political leadership, and the idea of expanding Medicaid likely remains a non-starter when the Legislature reconvenes this month.
But Gov.-elect Greg Abbott and many top conservatives support working with Washington to devise a federal block grant that would allow the state to remake Medicaid, a joint state-federal program that provides health care for the poor and disabled. Such an agreement could also earn Texas much of the up to $10 billion in annual subsidies that would have otherwise come via Medicaid expansion.
[…]
“I think CMS very much wants to make deals,” said Joan Alker executive director at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. “But there are certain lines that can’t be crossed.”
Alker noted that in Florida, another state that hasn’t expanded Medicaid, the government recently granted a one-year waiver to provide federal funding to hospitals, rather than the typical three-year waiver.
Read more here
