HCHP discusses Medicaid expansion plans

Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan met Wednesday at the Monroe County Public Library to discuss Medicaid expansion.

The event, in conjunction with the League of Women Voters, was named “Medicaid expansion: It’s good for all of us!”

Rob Stone, director of HCHP, spoke to about 75 audience members in the library auditorium.

“I’m going to try to explain some things that seem really complicated, but I think they are understandable,” Stone said. “The Affordable Care Act, ACA, or Obamacare, if you prefer, was passed and contained two portions. The mandate and the exchanges have gotten all the headlines. The Medicaid expansion was really a kind of forgotten
portion.”

Indiana can decide to accept Medicaid expansion or opt out of the program. A decision must be made by the state legislature before it closes April 29.

“My goal for 2013 is that Indiana, the legislature and the government, will take the steps necessary to initiate the Medicaid expansion and fund the Medicaid expansion,” Stone said. “It will cover roughly half of the uninsured people in the state, which is huge.”

Stone said the opposition to Medicaid expansion is both political and financial.

“Unfortunately, a lot of the people on the Republican side ran in one way or another in opposition to the Affordable Care Act,” he said. “That’s what kind of makes it political.”
He presented financial data supporting the expansion.

He said 60 percent of Medicaid is currently covered by the federal government. With the ACA, though, the federal government will pay 100 percent for the first three years. It will taper down to 90 percent “indefinitely,” he said.

A study, commissioned by Gov. Mitch Daniels, determined it would cost the state $150 million to invest in the program, Stone said.

He said other estimates are closer to $50 million and could be covered by the cigarette tax funding the Healthy Indiana Plan.

According to a letter Gov.-elect Mike Pence wrote to Daniels last year, Pence acknowledged support for HIP but not for Medicaid expansion. While President Barack Obama’s administration granted a one-year extension to HIP, it did not permit it to substitute Medicaid.

“The Medicaid program continues to be one of Indiana’s largest budget items,” Pence wrote in a letter to Daniels last year. “Its costs grow every year, and we have struggled to pay for our existing program. The Medicaid expansion would increase dependency by putting one quarter of all Hoosiers on Medicaid and could cost Indiana billions between now and 2020.”

Stone said he disagreed with these claims.

“For every dollar Indiana puts in, they are going to get back $11, at least, and those are conservative estimates,” Stone said,

Rep. Matt Pierce, D-61, spoke at the event as well, encouraging the audience to voice opinions regarding health care.

“Legislatures want to hear from their constituents,” he said. “That can really drive them to vote one way or another.”

Eighty-eight-year-old Ferne Stout of Bloomington said she came to the event because her grandson, who has Asperger’s syndrome, was denied Medicaid coverage.

“He can’t get anything,” Stout said. “He’s 34 years old, and he’s never had a primary care doctor. If he can get into the Medicaid program, the door opens to many things.”

Former Bloomington Hospital CEO Rolande Kohr said he was there to support HCHP and Medicaid expansion.

“This provides coverage to more people with very little cost to the state,” he said.
Though the ACA includes cost cuts for hospitals, he said he would support the initiative if he were still the CEO today.

“I’d be concerned about it, but I’d work hard to reduce costs,” he said.

In the next few months, conversation will come to a close, and Medicaid expansion will be either a reality or an issue of the past.

“A couple of months ago, around election time, I think I would have told you that there’s no way this could happen,” Pierce said. “If I had to make my bets now, that if we do our job, argue for our numbers and show that people want this, we can make something happen.”