Newspapers Address TennCare Enrollment Reductions

Several newspapers recently published stories addressing changes to TennCare, Tennessee's Medicaid managed care program. State officials this week will begin mailing letters to beneficiaries who will be cut from the program. Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) originally proposed removing 323,000 adults from TennCare but recently announced a plan to "spare the sickest" beneficiaries and keep the cuts at 226,000 people, the AP/Memphis Commercial Appeal reports (Johnson, AP/Memphis Commercial Appeal, 6/1). Summaries of the articles appear below:

• AP/Knoxville News-Sentinel: Public hospitals in Tennessee will face financial difficulties once TennCare cuts go into effect because of the expected increase in charity care costs, the AP/News-Sentinel reports. For example, the Regional Medical Center at Memphis expects the TennCare cuts to result in an additional $17 million in charity care costs. Bredesen has proposed spending $180 million statewide to help offset the cost of caring for former TennCare beneficiaries, and Craig Becker, president of the Tennessee Hospital Association, said hospitals will be able to cover at least some of their losses with income from privately insured patients and Medicare (Baird, AP/Knoxville News-Sentinel, 5/29).
  
  
• AP/Commercial Appeal: State officials said they will begin notifying TennCare beneficiaries who are being cut from the program this week, the AP/Commercial Appeal reports. TennCare spokesperson Michael Drescher said the plan to remove the beneficiaries is contingent upon the outcome of a consent decree hearing scheduled for June 13, but for now the state is continuing with its planned changes (AP/Memphis Commercial Appeal, 6/1).
  
  
• AP/Winston-Salem Journal: TennCare reductions will significantly impact rural areas of Tennessee where many low-income residents live, the AP/Journal reports. According to Leonard Carroll, a general surgeon in Jamestown, Tenn., patients "will have no money or means to pay," and doctors will "do what we did in the days before TennCare": beneficiaries "will be taken care of for free" (Mansfield, AP/Winston-Salem Journal, 6/2).