Feds Have New Leverage in Medicaid Showdown
If Texas wants to keep receiving billions of federal dollars to help hospitals care for uninsured patients, state lawmakers may have to look again at expanding Medicaid coverage for impoverished adults, some political observers say.
That's because in 2016, Texas will have to ask the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to renew a five-year waiver to pump $29 billion into state health care coffers.
Since landing its first such waiver in 2011, Texas leaders have defiantly refused to expand Medicaid as envisioned under the Affordable Care Act, leaving more than 1 million impoverished Texans with no health insurance.
With the waiver renewal nigh, observers said, there's some expectation that the federal agency will hold the waiver approval hostage in exchange for Medicaid expansion.
Read more: http://www.texastribune.org/2014/11/11/feds-consider-waiver-while-lawmakers-debate-medica/
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