Published: August 17, 2008 12:32 am            

Medicaid battle not over yet

I guess this Medicaid issue will — at least for some time — continue to carry with it the appropriate title "to be continued."

If Mississippians weren't confused enough by the political football match between House Democrats and Gov. Haley Barbour, they certainly are now.

In recent days, another lawsuit was filed by a group of Mississippi Hospitals in Hinds County Chancery Court to prevent the governor from increasing their gross revenue assessment.

The lawsuit is in response to the governor bypassing legislators by proposing to adjust the gross revenue on hospitals as it relates to a Medicaid program called upper payment limit, or UPL. That plan is set to go into effect Sept. 1 to solve Medicaid's $90 million deficit.

Barbour's plan was to pay for the shortfall through the state's ability to collect the state share of Medicaid's UPL program through the gross revenue assessment. In short, the governor's plan would raise the rate in which hospitals are taxed. Federal dollars will then be used to reimburse the hospitals at a higher rate than before. The end result: the deficit is all but solved with hospitals paying a stiffer rate to the state in the beginning, but most being reimbursed at a comparable rate by the federal government in the end.

The key word "most" is what's causing the latest stir.

Some hospitals, including Jeff Anderson Regional Medical Center and Riley Hospital locally, might not do well under the governor's plan, according to a report by the Hospital Association. That's why the Hospital Association opposes it, local hospital officials said. Thus the latest lawsuit.

Also this week, Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant discussed the possibility of an October special session ... and how a possible vote on a tobacco tax increase may be included in that call.

Officials with the lieutenant governor's office said Bryant is not proposing an increase on the tobacco tax as a cure-all for Medicaid. But Bryant believes an increase in the tobacco tax is likely. The governor's tax study commission is expected to release its report by the end of the month. That report is expected to include a proposal to raise the tax on tobacco products. Gov. Haley Barbour has said he, too, expects the commission to propose such an increase ... and he said he wouldn't oppose it.

The revenue the tax generates, however, will be a hot topic in Jackson this fall. Word on the street is that a proposal may soon surface that would include at least a portion of that new revenue to be used to fund Medicaid.

I'm sure other lawmakers have other plans on how to use it.

So while the governor's plan to solve Medicaid by bypassing the Legislature seemed to do the trick, the issue is, once again, far from dead.

Essentially, we're back to square one on this issue: one side says it won't budge unless a tobacco tax at least helps pay for the shortfall, and the other side says it's the only side with a true plan and that a tobacco tax should go to the general fund, not to fund Medicaid.

We'll see which side wins.

Until then, we'll keep calling this the "story that never seems to end."



Fredie Carmichael is editor of The Meridian Star. E-mail him at fcarmichael@themeridianstar.com.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.