Patrick: Medicaid block grants ‘bad for people’
WASHINGTON – Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick warned against a central tenet of a Republican deficit reduction plan that would turn the Medicaid program into block grants, saying it “may look good for the books but it’s bad for people.’’
“The states can’t sustain the level of service or enrollment without the federal partnership,’’ he said. “The governors advocating block grants know that.’’
Patrick was testifying at a US Senate Finance Committee hearing on health care entitlement reform in which Medicare as well as Medicaid, the health insurance payment system for the poor and disabled that is split between the federal government and states, figured prominently.
The 2012 GOP budget, which passed in the House but was rejected by the Senate, proposed to turn Medicaid into grants turned over the states. Some governors, such as Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, a Republican, support that approach, but Patrick is not among them.
“Massachusetts would lose more than $23 billion over 10 years if Medicaid moved to block grant form. There’s no way our Commonwealth with a balance sheet even as strong as ours would able to absorb such a cost shift,’’ he said.
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