Mississippi
faces opportunity to improve healthcare model
July
5, 2012
Jackson,
MS- Last year in Mississippi, uncompensated care, those costs incurred in
treating uninsured patients, totaled $525.5 million. Of that amount, $315 million was not covered
by any federal reimbursement program and was, instead, passed on to Mississippi
taxpayers.
House
Democratic Caucus Leader Bobby Moak (D – Bogue Chitto) said, “Mississippi hospitals
and taxpayers make up for uncompensated care through higher taxes and higher
costs for healthcare.”
Under
the Affordable Care Act, deemed constitutional by the United States Supreme
Court last week, many states will take advantage of Medicaid options that
drastically reduce the amount lost each year to uncompensated care. According to estimates provided by the Kaiser
Family Foundation, 330,000 Mississippians will be newly eligible for Medicaid
under the plan.
“If
those thousands of Mississippians who are currently using our emergency rooms
for ‘doctors visits’ are able to access health insurance, it will drive down
the amount Mississippi spends on uncompensated care,” said Moak.
Under the plan, Mississippi would receive $1.6137 billion per year for three years from the federal government to cover the cost of new healthcare recipients.
Brandon
Jones, Executive Director of the Mississippi Democratic Trust, said, “This is a
total of $4.8411 billion dollars in new healthcare funding that will not
require tax increases at the local level or result in higher hospital bills for
insured Mississippians.”
In
the fourth year of the program, Mississippi would receive $6.29343 billion and
would only be required to provide $161.37 million match.
Moak
said, “Mississippi would pay no matching costs for three years and the matching
costs in the fourth year would only represent a fraction of what we already pay
annually for uncompensated care.”
Jones
added, “Refusing healthcare funding under these circumstances would be a
classic example of cutting off our nose to spite our face.”
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PRESS NOTES:
1. To learn more about the Kaiser Family
Foundation and to read the Foundation’s reports on the impact of the ACA on
state Medicaid programs, visit www.kff.org.
2. Using the latest U. S. data, a Mississippi family
of four with an income of $30,656.50 would be eligible for the program. Each additional person in the household would
add $3,960 to that base amount.
3. Each year, Mississippi spends approximately $4,890
in healthcare costs per Medicaid recipient.