New Federal Exchange Hiccup: Sending Unqualified People To Medicaid

USA Today reports that the National Association of State Medicaid Directors may release more information this week about how the federal exchange may be mislabelling people as Medicaid-qualified.

USA Today: Federal Exchange Sends Unqualified People To Medicaid
The federal health care exchange is incorrectly determining that some people are eligible for Medicaid when they clearly are not, leaving them with little chance to get the subsidized insurance they are entitled to as the Dec. 23 deadline for enrollment approaches. State and industry officials haven't quantified the problem yet, but the National Association of State Medicaid Directors may release information next week after following up on reports from around the country, says Executive Director Matt Salo (O'Donnell, 12/8).

Meanwhile, there are updates on Medicaid expansion in South Dakota and Pennsylvania -

The New York Times: Pennsylvania Wants to Use Federal Funds to Cover Poor
The governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, released details on Friday of his proposal to use federal Medicaid funds to buy private health insurance for low-income people — a plan similar to one being carried out by Arkansas and considered by other Republican governors who oppose expanding Medicaid under President Obama’s health care law. Like the Arkansas plan, which the Obama administration formally approved in September, Mr. Corbett’s proposal would use federal funds available for expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to instead buy private coverage for an expanded Medicaid population (Goodnough, 12/6).

The Associated Press: Pa. Medicaid Plan Panned By Health Care Advocates
Health care advocates who began reading Gov. Tom Corbett's detailed proposal Friday to bring billions of federal health care dollars to Pennsylvania criticized it as unnecessarily punitive toward potential enrollees and laden with red tape. On top of that, the proposal that Corbett calls fiscally responsible also contains a long list of requests for the federal government to waive rules that would otherwise apply to the health care coverage that a state Medicaid program must provide (Levy, 12/6).

The Associated Press: South Dakota Lawmakers Urged To Expand Medicaid
Some lawmakers and health care groups plan to ask the South Dakota Legislature next month to expand the state's Medicaid program to cover the medical costs of 48,000 more poor people, despite resistance from Gov. Dennis Daugaard. Daugaard last week told state lawmakers that he is not recommending the Medicaid expansion, available to states as an option under the federal health care overhaul, as part of next year's state budget (12/9).