Senate Health Bill Includes House Provision To Cut N.Y. Counties’ Medicaid Obligations

Albany (N.Y.) Times Union: Faso-Collins Medicaid Provision Remains In Senate GOP Health Care Bill
A provision that would require New York state to pick up the county share of Medicaid costs has been included in the U.S. Senate Republican health care bill, which was released Thursday morning. The idea behind that piece is that if counties are alleviated of the Medicaid burden they currently shoulder, they can look to reduce property taxes. But state officials have estimated that should that provision become law, the state would be out $2.3 billion beginning in 2020. That provision, authored by GOP Congressmen John Faso of Kinderhook and Chris Collins of western New York, is a carryover form the House’s American Health Care Act. (Hamilton, 6/22)

Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat & Chronicle: Medicaid Would Shift To NY Under Senate Health Bill
Counties in New York would be off the hook for paying for Medicaid costs under the U.S. Senate's health care bill Thursday, which included a controversial measure that was part of the House bill approved last month. ... Counties have said the change would alleviate them of having to pay about 13 percent of the state's overall Medicaid cost — and thus it would provide property-tax relief to residents. "We are on track to ending the Obamacare nightmare, and I am pleased with the progress made today to bring vital reforms and the largest property tax reduction ever enacted to western New York," Collins said in a statement. (Spector, 6/22)

Chicago Tribune: Medicaid Expansion Could End Early In Illinois Under Senate Obamacare Replacement Bill
Many low-income adults across the nation could lose Medicaid expansion coverage under the Senate's Obamacare replacement bill — but in Illinois those losses could come three years earlier because of a state law. About 650,000 Illinois residents could lose their Medicaid expansion coverage in 2021, if the Senate bill becomes law and a state statute, meant to keep Illinois' Medicaid expenses in check, remains in place. (Schencker, 6/22)

Nashville Tennessean: How The Senate Health Care Bill Impacts Tennessee And Other States
The Senate's health care proposal repeals taxes, restructures and caps Medicaid funding, while immediately giving state insurance commissioners leeway to change plan benefits. At its core, the proposal works to reduce the federal government's health care expenditures by giving states more autonomy — and thus financial exposure — to craft insurance regulations and how Medicaid works in their states, experts said. (Fletcher, 6/22)

Richmond Times-Dispatch: State Says Senate Health Plan Puts Virginia At Disadvantage, 'Harsher' Than House Proposal
Virginia legislative budget leaders had a quick response to a new health care plan proposed by Republicans in the U.S. Senate — please don’t do what you just did. The Republican co-chairmen of the Joint Subcommittee for Health and Human Resources Oversight said Thursday that the Senate’s current proposal “fails to address the inequities in the federal funding allocation between states” for the Medicaid program that Virginia has operated in partnership with the federal government for a half-century. (Martz, 6/22)

Sioux Falls, S.D. Argus Leader: Daugaard: Medicaid Cuts Could Bring Crucial Savings
A proposal to slash funding to Medicaid could be the only opportunity to shrink the federal deficit in a divided Congress, Gov. Dennis Daugaard said Thursday. The Republican governor said shrunken Medicaid funding laid out in the Better Care Reconciliation Act, shared Thursday by a group of Senate Republicans, could create needed savings for the federal government. "That might be the only way that we will ever get control of spending," Daugaard said. (Ferguson, 6/22)

Sacramento Bee: Millions Of Californians Could Lose Medi-Cal Coverage Under Republican Health Care Plan
For the first year in history, over half of all visits to Sacramento County’s emergency rooms in 2016 were paid for using Medi-Cal, the state’s insurance program for the poor that was expanded by the passage of the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare. So what happens to those people if Obamacare is repealed by the U.S. Congress? (Xu, 6/22)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Study: Atlanta Hospital Most Vulnerable To Medicaid Cuts
If the Obamacare revision the U.S. House of Representatives passed in May became law, the Georgia hospital to lose the most Medicaid funding would be Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Hughes Spalding, according to a new analysis by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. ... Children’s hospitals are particularly reliant on Medicaid, since unlike adults, most low-income children in Georgia can be covered under the program. Children’s Healthcare at Hughes Spalding gets about 65 percent of its revenues from Medicaid, GPBI said. (Hart, 6/22)