Mo. Senate Panel Cuts $28 Million From Medicaid Budget
Other outlets also report on Medicaid developments in Connecticut, Kansas and Arkansas.
The Associated Press:
Senators Trim Medicaid Spending In Mid-Year Budget Increase
[Missouri] State senators have trimmed about $28 million of Medicaid spending from a mid-year increase to Missouri’s budget. The Senate appropriations committee on Tuesday lowered the planned funding boosts for Medicaid’s hospital care, medicine and physician services. Most of the nearly $500 million supplemental budget would still go to health care for people with low incomes. (4/11)
The Connecticut Mirror:
On Second Try, Legislators Approve Outsourcing Plan For Brain Injury Program
Legislators voted Monday to allow the state to move toward outsourcing case management work in a Medicaid program for people with acquired brain injuries, four months after rejecting a similar proposal. (Levin Becker, 4/11)
The Kansas Health Institute News Service:
Behind The Backlog: The Problem-Plagued Rollout Of KEES
State officials called a news conference when they inked a $188 million contract in the summer of 2011 for a new high-tech Medicaid enrollment system with Accenture, a Dublin-based multinational professional services giant. They said the new Kansas Eligibility Enforcement System, or KEES, would replace a clunky paper-based enrollment system that sometimes took up to 45 days. The new system, they said, would allow Kansans who provided the correct information through an online portal to enroll within a day or two. That hasn’t happened. (Marso, 4/11)
Arkansas Online:
State: Ax Medicaid-Suit Injunction
A preliminary injunction blocking the state from cutting off Medicaid payments for Planned Parenthood services obtained by three women who are challenging the cutoff in a lawsuit shouldn't be applied to anyone else, the Arkansas attorney general's office argued Monday. The state attorneys argued that there is no proof that a class represented by the three women would be "irreparably harmed" by waiting for a resolution of the suit. They also argued that the court lacks jurisdiction to expand the injunction while it is on appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. (Satter, 4/12)
