His words: Recording of Eliot Fishman’s remarks on LIP and Medicaid waiver

He didn’t answer follow up questions from reporters, but Eliot Fishman, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services director of the Children and Adults Health Programs Group, did talk at length about Medicaid and the Florida experience during his keynote address at the the 2015 Health Care Affordability Summit hosted by the Foundation of Associated Industries of Florida.

Fishman spoke to the audience that had dwindled to less than 50 by the second day of the conference and spoke for about half an hour on Medicaid and health outcomes and the Affordable Care Act, among other things. Twenty eight states and the District of Columbia have expanded Medicaid to working poor adults. Florida has not.

At the end of his speech, Fishman touched on the future of the Low Income Pool. LIP is $2 billion plus pot of money that Florida uses to help treat the costs of the uninsured and underinsured as well as help support graduate medical education. It is comprised of intergovernmental transfers, state general revenue and federal matching dollars.

The LIP program expires June 30, 2015.

Click on the file below to hear Fishman’s comments, as well as the answers to two questions audience members asked him.

After his keynote speech Fishman’s was asked by a hospital representative about the future of the program in which he told her “There’s not going to be an extension of LIP this year.” CMS later sent out a release saying the program would not be extend in its current form.

Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida President Tony Carvalho said in a statement that his organization is concerned about the future of the program but that his group of 23 hospital remain “hopeful that the governor’s office will continue working with the federal government to design a new supplemental funding model so that services to the uninsured and underinsured aren’t left with a $2 billion shortfall.”

Carvalho said Florida needs both a supplemental funding program such as LIP as well as the Medicaid expansion and that it’s not a one or the other situation. “Florida needs both programs. Low income Floridians need the access to health care that coverage can provide. And the provides of their health care such as hospitals need the supplemental funding support, because the Medicaid program covers less than half the cost of providing the care.”