GOP proposal in Congress could mean cuts to Minnesota's Medical Assistance program
Minnesota might lose $5B by 2021 for 1 million Medical Assistance users.
Minnesota stands to lose billions of dollars in federal funds for the state's Medical Assistance program under a proposal being considered by congressional Republicans.
Although changes in Washington, D.C., still are being debated, the broad outlines suggest that Minnesota would take a $1.3 billion hit in 2019 that would escalate to $5 billion by 2021, according to a preliminary analysis conducted by the Minnesota Department of Human Services.
The changes in part are due to the GOP-led effort to unravel the Affordable Care Act, which provided generous funding to states like Minnesota that opted to expand health insurance to the poor. Since the ACA was enacted in 2010, more than 300,000 Minnesotans have been added to Medical Assistance rolls.
But it also reflects a desire, championed by U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and other conservatives, to fundamentally change the funding formula for Medicaid, as the program is known nationally, and stem the amount of federal funds flowing to the states.
In 2016, the cost of Minnesota's Medical Assistance program was $11.2 billion, but Minnesota paid $3.9 billion and the federal government paid most of the rest. Roughly speaking, for every dollar in Medical Assistance spending, the federal government matches that at half of the cost. The federal government also now pays the full costs of people who were enrolled as part of the ACA expansion.
Originally Posted by St. Clown
