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Local Impact of Healthcare Reform
Posted July 19, 2017
Healthcare reform has been hotly debated and making headlines in recent months. As it should be with a number of proposed cuts, most recently in the Senate healthcare bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act signed into law by President Barack Obama seven years ago. One proposed version of the Senate healthcare bill included a $772 billion reduction in Medicaid funding through FY2026.
According to a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, nationally six in 10 individuals living at a nursing home rely on Medicaid to pay for their care, on Maui that number is closer to eight in 10. AARP reported that nursing home spending accounted for 75.5 percent of Medicaid long-term services and support payments in 2014. Deep reductions to Medicaid would have a devastating impact on our most vulnerable citizens, seniors and the disabled.
Medicaid rates had been frozen in Hawaii for FY2009 and again from FY2011 - FY2015. The majority of nursing homes who are paid by Medicaid are already receiving payments that are lower than the cost of providing a home and around the clock nursing care for an individual. With Medicaid covering nearly 20 percent more of the individuals at Maui’s free-standing nursing homes then the national average, the impact of any cuts to Medicaid would simply not be sustainable.
In addition, federal cuts to Medicaid spending, would shift the burden of healthcare costs currently covered by Medicaid to the states, state taxpayers, and families. AARP estimated that Hawaii alone would have lost $1.9 billion in total federal and state Medicaid funding from FY2020 to FY2026, if the most recent Senate healthcare bill passes.
Hale Makua Health Services thanks Senators Mazie Hirono and Brian Shatz for their steadfast opposition to the recent healthcare bills that proposed deep cuts to the Medicaid program. Watch a video produced by Senator Hirono’s team, which includes thoughts from Hale Makua residents and family members and the importance of the Medicaid program to them.