ME requests 10-year funding for Medicaid expansion
The LePage administration on Wednesday made clear its stance on expanding Medicaid in Maine: only if there's more federal funding for the effort.
Mary Mayhew, commissioner of Maine's Department of Health and Human Services, wrote a letter to federal officials Wednesday, outlining a request that the federal government pay the full cost of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act for 10 years — not three years, as the federal plan provides — and that the state is not "penalized" for an early expansion of Medicaid.
Mayhew pointed to the state's recent budget troubles and mounting costs of its Medicaid program, MaineCare, which has $186 million in debt outstanding to the state's hospitals.
Had Maine not expanded Medicaid nearly a decade ago, Mayhew writes, the state would receive full funding for more residents that qualify under the new federal rules. Because of that expansion, Maine's "newly eligible" population is smaller, which Mayhew said should be reflected in federal compensation for the expansion.
The Bangor Daily News reported that a Kaiser Family Foundation study identified Maine as one of 10 states that would reduce Medicaid spending over the next decade by expanding the program. That expansion would add around 55,000 people to Maine's Medicaid rolls.
In her letter, Mayhew also requested that the federal government grant Maine a "global waiver" that Mayhew wrote would allow the state flexibility in the way it changes its Medicaid program.
The Portland Press Herald reported the LePage administration's recent talks with federal officials on Medicaid expansion has divided Republicans, who face pressure from conservative groups opposed to the expansion of the health care program.
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