Modern Healthcare

By: Rachel Cohrs

If President Donald Trump’s plan to extend additional unemployment benefits further squeezes state budgets already ravaged by COVID-19, states could look to Medicaid as a way to cut costs.

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If states have to come up with the funds somehow and don’t get additional assistance from Congress, the unemployment program creates a new budget line item. “It undercuts existing fiscal relief and puts even greater pressure on healthcare programs like Medicaid and CHIP, which makes states more likely to cut, including provider rate cuts,” said Edwin Park, a research professor at the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families.

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