Members of Medicaid Commission named
From Reuters:
In a move likely to further anger Democrats, two former stategovernors — one Republican and one independent — were named on Fridayto head a controversial panel charged with recommending spending cutsand other Medicaid reforms.
Tennessee Republican Don Sundquist,whose state has been at the forefront of efforts to cut back Medicaidspending, and Maine independent Angus King will lead the 28-memberpanel. It will have eight weeks to suggest ways to trim $10 billionover the next five years from the nation’s health program for the poor,U.S. health officials said.
The appointments are likely tofurther rile Democrats, who have boycotted the panel and called itone-sided because only Bush appointees will have a vote.
Medicaid, a joint federal and state program, serves millions of poorAmericans, including children, the disabled and many elderly people innursing homes.
It has come under financial pressure especiallyas state budgets tighten. Some states, most notably Tennessee, havealready moved to drop patients from its rolls to save money.
Governors have told the U.S. Congress they need more money to cope with rising health care costs and growing populations.
“There is consensus that now is the time to reform and modernizeMedicaid,” Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt said.
Leavitt left two voting member slots open for current governors to joinlater this year. In May, Leavitt said he would appoint all 15 votingmembers and 15 nonvoting members.
Editor’s note: while newly named chairman Don Sundquist was governor of Tennessee, his administration was involved in a Medicaid scandal in which the state of Tennessee illegally applied federal Medicaid funds to other uses. According to a story published in the Nashville City Paper in 2001:
The Sundquist Administration moved quietly last week to clean up one ofits biggest ongoing financial scandals — the use of an illegal taxscheme to rip off the federal Medicaid program of an estimated $455million intended to fund health care for the poor, elderly and disabled.
Thestate took the federal money, doled out a pittance — around $15 milliona year — to help a few thousand Tennessee nursing home residents payfor nursing home care, and funneled the rest into the state’s generalfund to help pay for Gov. Don Sundquist’s spending spree. It getsworse. The administration has known the program violates federal law for seven years. Read the rest….
In 2002, Sundquist removed almost 200,000 impoverished Tenneseeans from the state’s Medicaid rolls, a move later found to have been a violation of federal regulations concerning Medicaid eligibility.
Related Link: Families USA Mediciad Action Page