State wins waivers for Medicaid
By Staff
From staff and wire reports
September 10, 2004
JACKSON Mississippi has won federal approval for waivers to continue to provide Medicaid services to about 17,000 people who would have been removed from the program under a new state law.
Gov. Haley Barbour said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, granted the waivers and notified the state on Thursday.
State lawmakers, at Barbour's urging, passed legislation last spring that dropped 65,000 people in the Poverty Level Aged and Disabled, or PLAD, category from the state Medicaid program.
They said the move was a cost saving measure because most of those cut would be eligible for Medicare which is wholly funded by the federal government.
The waivers will cover 17,000 people in the PLAD category who need anti-rejection drugs after organ transplants, chemotherapy, kidney dialysis or anti-psychotic drugs.
Medicaid director Dr. Warren Jones said 5,000 people who are not eligible for Medicare also are included in the 17,000. The waivers cover a five-year cycle, after which the program must be re-evaluated, Jones said.
Barbour said Medicaid officials are continuing to contact the rest of the recipients cut from the program, assisting them with the switch to Medicare. The Medicaid benefits for PLADs will cease Oct. 1.
Jones said the waivers' initial projection cost to the Medicaid program was $23 million, but he said the figure could increase as health care costs escalate.
Some critics of the Medicaid law say people in the PLAD category will receive reduced prescription drug benefits under Medicare, which provides $600 per year for patients' medicine.
Rims Barber, director of the Mississippi Human Services Agenda in Jackson, said Medicaid had provided "wraparound" coverage for PLADs.
Barber said Medicare pays 80 percent of hospitalization costs after a deductible. He said Medicaid traditionally paid the deductible for the PLADs, plus the 20 percent.
Barber also criticized the selection process for waiver coverage.
Gov. Barbour said he and lawmakers chose the "people who need the most care."
