Christine Jordan SextonIt’s not clear what, if any, dollar amount the federal government will approve in new Medicaid supplemental funding for hospitals.
But the Urban Institute wants to make one thing clear: the $1.6 billion figure that is being bandied about in correspondence is not an estimate of the amount of money that the Low Income Pool would spend or need to spend on hospital care for the uninsured in Florida if Medicaid were expanded under the Affordable Care Act.
“First, the estimate includes health care from all providers, not just hospitals,” said senior research analyst Matthew Buettgens at Urban Institute, who sent out the email. “Second, it includes all funding sources for uncompensated care.”
Other programs that pick up the costs of uncompensated care, Buettgens said, are Disproportionate Share under the Medicaid and Medicare programs and Veterans Administration hospitals. Additionally, some indigent care is picked up by local government programs, Buettgens said in the memo.
“Thus, the amount of uncompensated care funded through the LIP waiver would be a fraction of the $1.6 billion in total uncompensated care.” Buettgens said in the email.
The Urban Institute is a Washington, DC based think tank tank that conducts economic and social research policy. Buettgens said the Urban Institute has been fielding questions from reporters who have been covering the issue in Florida and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also inquired about the figure.
Researchers estimated uncompensated care costs in Florida at $1.6 billion in 2012 as part of a Robert Wood Johnson-funded study. That study showed that the amount of uncompensated care in Florida dropped from $4.9 billion a year to $1.6 billion if the state expanded Medicaid to people with incomes at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level as called for under the federal health care law. That’s a reduction of about 70 percent.
The Urban Institute has no position on the state’s request to continue the LIP program or whether it should be tied to Medicaid expansion. He told Florida Politics that the memo was sent out to clarify the figure given it appeared in a letter sent by Congressional Republicans to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services last week.
