Washington, DC – The American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) today applauded Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight & Government Reform for issuing a report on the state-by-state impact of seven Medicaid regulations issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The Waxman Committee report, The Administration's Medicaid Regulations: State-by-State Impacts, reflects many of the major concerns that AHCA/NCAL has expressed, and continues to raise about how these regulations impact the long term care of America's most vulnerable seniors.
"We appreciate Chairman Waxman's attention to the state impact of these federal regulations as Medicaid is a joint federal/state program. His committee's report offers documented proof of the considerable blow these regulations would have on states," stated AHCA/NCAL President Bruce Yarwood. "We share the committee's concern that these seven regulations reduce federal Medicaid funds not through greater efficiency, but through what the report calls '… unilateral actions by CMS neither directed nor authorized by Congress.' Especially as the nation's Governors are facing more challenging economic conditions, we worry that these regulations will constrict seniors' ability to access key Medicaid programs and resources and that the loss of federal Medicaid funds will merely shift costs to the states and disrupt existing systems of care for fragile populations.
The report notes that the way in which these regulations were issued, "does not enable members of Congress or the public to assess the effect of the regulation on their own states. In a program like Medicaid, which is operated by the states on a day-to-day basis and is famous for its variation from state to state, the lack of state-specific estimates represents a major failure of transparency."
Yarwood commented, "We completely agree with the House Committee's assessment that more transparency is in order, and concur that the combined effect of the reductions in federal funds from all seven regulations represents a major fiscal blow for many states."
The AHCA/NCAL President and CEO also made the following observations regarding the Medicaid regulations, and reiterated several principles AHCA/NCAL has repeatedly outlined in consideration of Medicaid reforms:
- The loss of intergovernmental transfer (IGT) funds, "will have a significant negative impact on states as they scramble to replace funds committed to long term care," and will be hard-pressed, if not impossible, to replace these dollars with other state funds;
- Finding future budget savings should not come at the expense of today's quality long term care provided for poor and frail elderly;
- Particularly in difficult economic times, states are desperate for supplementary Medicaid funding to meet the needs of their most vulnerable citizens. States have turned to programs such as IGTs to access these much-needed Medicaid dollars.
Yarwood stated, "Instead of focusing on the problems with legal mechanisms like IGTs, we should focus on why these dollars are needed, and how we can meet this financial challenge." He added that the long term care profession has advanced a plan to help alleviate the long term care financing challenges at hand. The profession's Long Term and Post-Acute Care Financing Reform Proposal will not just allow federal and state lawmakers to seize control of eldercare financing issues, but offers welcome help to the nation's Governors by dramatically restructuring the Medicaid program, which currently finances the lion's share of long term care in America. The plan, which is available at www.ahca.org, would reorganize the Medicaid long term care and Medicare post-acute care systems by centralizing and streamlining government services, and making more private resources available to pay for care that would benefit consumers, providers, and taxpayers alike.
The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (NCAL) represent nearly 11,000 non-profit and proprietary facilities dedicated to continuous improvement in the delivery of professional and compassionate care provided daily by millions of caring employees to 1.5 million of our nation's frail, elderly and disabled citizens who live in nursing facilities, assisted living residences, subacute centers and homes for persons with mental retardation and developmental disabilities. For more information, please visit www.ahca.org or www.ncal.org.