NAPH Spearheads Medicaid Message to ‘Super Committee,’ Committees of Jurisdiction Send Recommendations - October 18, 2011

Led by NAPH, on Oct. 12, the nation’s leading hospital trade associations sent a letter to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (the “super committee”) detailing the importance of protecting the Medicaid program. The letter noted that current proposals to reduce the use of provider taxes and to create one “blended” federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP) per state would simply shift costs onto states, providers and beneficiaries. The letter urged the super committee “to look at sound policy changes that lower overall costs, not at proposals that would undermine the Medicaid program at a time it is needed the most.”

Several committees of jurisdiction have sent their recommendations for reducing the federal budget deficit to the super committee. In its recommendations, the House Energy and Commerce Committee minority urged the “super committee” to “resist the temptation to reduce federal health care costs by passing these costs to other payers who are even less able to afford them. Proposals that shift costs to states or to beneficiaries do not control health care costs; they merely shift around the burden to less privileged groups that are less able to defend their interests.” The Senate Finance Committee minority released its recommendations to the “super committee” on Friday, Oct. 14. The recommendations called for repealing the Affordable Care Act, tightening Medicare eligibility and turning Medicaid into a block grant, but did not address the two most common proposals to cut Medicaid: the “blended” FMAP and reduced provider taxes. Notably, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) did not sign on to the committee’s recommendations, citing concern over the proposed changes to Medicare and Medicaid. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) did not sign on to the recommendations either because of his position on the “super committee.” The Energy and Commerce Committee and Finance Committee majorities did not send recommendations because their chairs sit on the “super committee.”