States Worry About Loss of Stimulus Funds for Medicaid
State officials are concerned over how they will fund Medicaid programs after federal stimulus funds allocated for the program expire in January 2011, according to a new Government Accountability Office study, the Wall Street Journal reports.
About $90 billion of the $787 billion stimulus is allocated for additional funding of state Medicaid programs.
GAO reports that states are using those funds to cover increased caseloads and maintain current services, eligibility requirements and provider payment rates.
Some states have used the money to free up other parts of their budget that would otherwise have been diverted to Medicaid. However, state leaders are now questioning "the longer term sustainability of their Medicaid programs" after the stimulus money runs out, according to GAO (Radnofsky, Wall Street Journal, 9/23).
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