Study of Texas without a Medicaid program is 'looking at all options,' says social services czar

A legislatively mandated study of what Texas would do if the national Medicaid health program for the poor were abolished -- or federal matching money to states were slashed -- will examine how the state might improve its existing Medicaid or scrap it, Health and Human Services Commission chief Tom Suehs said today.

The study, required last session by House Bill 497, will be ready early next month, Suehs told two Senate committees holding a joint hearing on the federal health care overhaul. He said a major theme will be that states such as Texas with a high proportion of poor, uninsured residents are mistreated by the current Medicaid formula for determining how much federal match money a state gets. "It's fundamentally flawed," Suehs said, because states such as New York with higher per capita income are protected from a very low match rate by a congressional decision to have the worst deal be a 50-50 split. Otherwise, New York might be getting only about 30 percent of its Medicaid spending paid for by the federal government, he suggested.

Texas normally gets about 60 percent of its Medicaid costs paid by the feds, though the stimulus package and follow-up bills by Congress have pumped that to about 70 percent through next June. Still, Suehs (at right in above photo) complained that Texas receives only 7 percent of federal Medicaid match money. That's even though it has 14 percent of the nation's uninsured and about 10 percent of its poor people, he said.

Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, asked about how things would work if Texas opted out of Medicaid.

"We're looking at all options, senator," Suehs said. "We're looking at opting out scenarios, we're looking at waivers" of federal rules that would allow Texas to redesign its program. But he said inequities in the federal formula will be "the biggest issue in that report."

Source: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/11/study-of-texas-seceding-from-m.html

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