By Greg Mellowe, Florida CHAIN
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced its approval of a three-year extension of Florida’s Statewide Medicaid Managed Care program, but only a one-year extension of the Low Income Pool (LIP). The LIP provides the state with additional federal Medicaid funding that hospitals can use to address the issue of uncompensated care for uninsured patients.
By approving an extension of Medicaid managed care as a whole for the maximum three years, but specifically limiting LIP to only one year, CMS has further clarified what was already clear: the LIP provides only a short-term band-aid for the problem of uncompensated care, not the real and lasting remedy that is needed.
A primary cause of Florida’s uncompensated care crisis is its high rate of uninsurance – among the highest in the nation, particularly among those who are the least able to pay for health care. And while the LIP program remains an essential resource for sustaining Florida’s indispensable hospital safety net, it does nothing to resolve that crisis.
Rather, the most obvious, direct and effective way to address the problem would be to accept the federal funding on the table under the Affordable Care Act to extend Medicaid or alternative coverage to more than a million uninsured, low-income Floridians.
By accepting health care expansion, Florida would see an infusion of more than $51 billion in already-paid federal tax dollars back into Florida over the next ten years that would not only permanently reduce uncompensated care costs, but provide significant long-term benefits to Floridians and Florida’s economy as well.
Furthermore, there simply is no reason not to opt for a lasting solution. Opponents have raised no legitimate objections to accepting health care expansion. The only remaining barrier is political, and the Administration has for its part set politics aside in granting the extension of the waiver. The Florida Legislature should quickly follow suit; far too much is at stake to justify doing otherwise.
