According to Bloomberg News, the long-term care industry would be harshly impacted if state Medicaid funding is converted into block grants.
Bloomberg finds that converting Medicaid money into block grants could translate into billions of dollars worth of cuts to long-term care programs. It could lead to $53 billion to $154 billion in reduced overall Medicaid spending between 2012 and 2019 and long-term care facilities would lose between $8 billion and $23 billion.
A block grant is a large sum of money granted by the national government to a regional government with only general provisions as to the way it is to be spent. They allow regional governments to experiment with different ways of spending money.
According to the General Accounting Office, from 1980 to 2001 the number of federal block grant programs went from 450 to 700. The grants are aimed at a wide range of activities from education to healthcare, transportation, housing and counterterrorism.
My guess is that because block grants only have general provisions attached to how they are sepant, it gives states great latitude to "put the screws" to healthcare organizations and use the funding for other purposes. OK, so that is my crude interpretation. Maybe some of the policy wonks can expand on this by commenting.
Major criticisms of block grants are that:
- the award process can be manipulated so that grants can be distributed to reward the federal administration's own party.
- the same sort of partisan favoritism may occur at a local level when the state distributes the funds to local government units.
- dispersing the funds through state or local governments makes federal oversight of their proper use very difficult.
Republicans have been talking about converting Medicaid funding into block grants for states as a potential cost-saving option. Managed care plans would be the hardest hit, losing between $15 billion and $45 billion, followed by hospitals, which could lose between $11 billion and $33 billion.
American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living President and CEO Mark Parkinson was quoted expressing the balance between maintaining the crucial role of Medicaid in protecting those who require care and services the most, while still addressing state budget crises. "We understand the need for states to balance their budgets, but oppose any block-grant proposal that balances those budgets on the backs of the frail and elderly," said Parkinson in the article.
Not to belabor a point but issues like this require those working in elder care services to get involved in the legislative process. So please re-read our primer on that (you did read it the first time right?!) and get involved in your local and state associations to make sure your funding source do not dry up.
Learn more ~ or join the conversation!
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