Medicaid Budget Debate Scheduled for Next Week
posted 4.22.05
Next week, five state senators and five state representatives will hammer out the differences between the House and Senate versions of the appropriations bill, Senate Bill 1. Article 2 of that bill contains the expenditures for health and human services and on Friday, April 29, the conference committee will debate the final funding proposals in Article 2, including reimbursement for Medicaid and CHIP as well as what services will be covered.
Members of the conference committee need to hear from the family physicians of Texas. Call and fax the conference committee members and ask them to FULLY FUND MEDICAID AND CHIP and to INCREASE REIMBURSEMENT FOR PHYSICIANS.
The Senate conferees are Steve Ogden (R-Bryan), Robert Duncan (R-Lubbock), Kip Averitt (R-McGregor), Judith Zaffirini (D-Laredo), and John Whitmire (D-Houston). The House conferees are Jim Pitts (R-Waxahachie), Vilma Luna (D-Corpus Christi), Dan Gattis (R-Georgetown), Sylvester Turner (D-Houston), and Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham).
In a recent letter to the chair of the SB1 conference committee, Sen. Steve Ogden, the Primary Care Coalition -- which includes TAFP -- outlined the reasons why the committee should take these actions, pointing out that reduced access to primary care forces people to seek more expensive care in crowded emergency rooms.
“For years Texas Medicaid and CHIP physician networks have been deteriorating at an alarming rate,” reads the PCC letter. “Primary care physicians are no longer able to keep pace with the exponential growth of these patient populations when they represent a significant aggregate economic loss to their practices. This is not merely anecdotal. A recent survey of Texas’ primary care physicians reported that over half of those physicians participating in the Medicaid program offered either no or limited services to new Medicaid patients.
Insufficient reimbursement rates are the primary reason so many primary care physicians have ceased accepting new Medicaid/CHIP patients. As a means of compensation, Medicaid and CHIP pay woefully less than all other payers – on average 50 percent less than private insurance and 75 percent of Medicare. Our colleagues simply can no longer afford this financial burden.”
Act now. For phone and fax numbers for members of the conference committee, click on the links below: