The changing face of Medicare

by Jacquinette Murphy of North Dallas Gazette

If the moratorium on the new Medicaid regulations is allowed to expire in May 2008, North Texas residents and area hospitals will soon feel the effects.

North Texas residents and area hospitals will soon feel the effects of the tightening belt of the national health care system later this spring if the moratorium on the new Medicaid regulations is allowed to expire in May 2008. The one-year moratorium was enacted to give the U.S. Congress more time to review some of the federal cost-cutting regulations proposed by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 and the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006.

The expiration of the moratorium is said to shift payment from the federal government to state governments for the uninsured for the coverage of hospital and clinic services, case management services and long-term and rehabilitative care for people that are disabled.

John Hawkins, the vice-president of government relations for the Texas Hospital Association shared the impact that the changes could bring to the medical care facilities of the Lone Star state.. "It would certainly impact the public hospitals because they receive funding from the program to provide the services to the indigent, and the working poor," Hawkins said.

In regards to the effect on the booming mature adult population in Texas, Hawkins said, " It would impact the ability to fund the transition to continued care from an acute care facility." Hawkins further explained that this would force more people to stay in acute care facilities past the appropriate time and ultimately drive up the cost of uncompensated care.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a statement in February that advertised the benefits of this adjustment stating that it will implement the Administration's goals of aligning Medicaid more closely with private market insurance and the states will now have the opportunity to offer health plans more comparable to plans offered to other populations in the state. Additionally, enactment of the new rules would shift the program controls from the national level and give control of the Medicaid plan design to the states since they deal more directly with the beneficiaries.