Jindal pulls Louisiana's Obamacare application, cites not wanting to care for more people
By KYLE CHENEY | 8/21/13 4:31 PM EDT
Gov. Bobby Jindal, a fierce Obamacare critic, pursued funds from an under-the-radar program in the health law until this week, when his administration reversed course, citing cumbersome federal rules.
Health aides to the Louisiana governor began eyeing the program – a long-term care reform effort called Community First Choice – last year and went as far as submitting a formal application to CMS. But officials say they withdrew the application Monday because complicated federal stipulations would have undermined their efforts and likely led to lawsu
...“This is a great example of an area where [CMS] wasn’t being flexible to work with the states to make it work for us,” said Calder Lynch, policy director for Louisiana’s Department of Health and Hospitals. “If CMS changes its position in a way that makes sense for Louisiana, we would revisit it. At this time, we haven’t seen any indication of that.”
The program boosts states’ Medicaid match rate by 6 percentage points for certain long-term care services for the elderly and disabled, encouraging community- or home-based care for thousands of Medicaid-eligible patients.
“After consultation with CMS to better understand the statutory provisions that states are required to meet, Louisiana decided to withdraw their current CFC application,” CMS spokesman Brian Cook said. “However, the state is welcome to resubmit their application for the CFC program at any time.”
Lynch said the program would force a “vast expansion” of community care services and would have overwhelmed the state’s existing infrastructure. Not to mention, he said, it would open the state up to “lawsuits which we feared would’ve resulted in us having to offer … care to far more individuals.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/bobby-jindal-withdraws-request-for-obamacare-funds-95773.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
