Medicaid enrollment growing in states as the nation's economy is slumping
30 09 08 - 16:00
Economic slump finds more people on Medicaid
Downturn challenges states to help uninsured, report finds
BY PATRICIA ANSTETT • FREE PRESS MEDICAL WRITER
The nation's slumping economy is triggering growing Medicaid enrollment, a challenge to states like Michigan as they serve more uninsured people, state and national Medicaid experts said Monday.
"If the downturn is prolonged, and it contributes to large increases in Medicaid enrollment and spending, then this state and every other one will have to look at options to rein in spending," said Vern Smith, Michigan's former Medicaid director and coauthor of a report released Monday by the Kaiser Family Foundation on Medicaid spending.
Across the country, as more people lost health insurance, Medicaid enrollment grew 2.1% in the 2008 fiscal year, which ends today. Michigan's Medicaid enrollment jumped 3.7%.
It begins the 2009 fiscal year with 1.58 million recipients, more than 1 in every 10 residents, up from 1 million in fiscal 1999.
Paul Reinhart, Michigan's current Medicaid director, said that the state has been able to add more people to the program because it levies a hospital provider tax that generated $4 million in extra federal funding.
The state expects to finish fiscal 2009 with a small surplus in the project, compared with two-thirds of states projecting budget shortfalls, the Kaiser report predicts.
The eighth annual report, based on surveys of all 50 state Medicaid directors, is available at www. kff.org.
Contact PATRICIA ANSTETT at 313-222-5021 or panstett@freepress.com
Click here for individual and family health insurance online quote with major health insurance carriers.