Business, health, political leaders digest Medicaid expansion issues at breakfast

March 05--Business, health, political leaders digest Medicaid expansion issues at breakfast

By MICHAEL COUSINEAU

New Hampshire Union Leader

March 05. 2018 12:36PM

-- Extending the Medicaid expansion program is important for both businesses and people receiving health care, according to speakers at a legislative breakfast Monday.

"This is a game changer for Manchester," said Anna Thomas, the city's deputy public health director.

Medicaid expansion provides health-care coverage for about 7,500 city residents.

"I know for a fact that it absolutely is changing the trajectory for so many residents who otherwise would have been in much worse situations," she said. "Their health outcomes would have been poorer."

The Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce hosted a legislative breakfast for about 25 people to discuss Medicaid expansion, which provides federal funds to cover more than 50,000 people without health care.

The Legislature is considering a bill to renew Medicaid expansion, which is scheduled to end at year's end.

Sen. Lou D'Allesandro, D-Manchester, said issues that need to be ironed out include a work or community-service requirement for certain participants and agreement on funding the state's share, which climbs to 10 percent by 2020.

"What I'm being told is that there is confusion and controversy in the House," D'Allesandro said. "There is a strong group in the House that's adamantly opposed to reauthorization and they're going to battle it."

D'Allesandro said the state has received about $1.2 billion under Medicaid expansion.

"A lot of lives have been saved; a lot of lives have been made better," he said.

New Hampshire is one of 33 states that expanded eligibility for Medicaid to cover a larger portion of the population through the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

The current bill includes work or community-service requirements for certain participants and conversion of the program to an HMO-style managed-care approach.

"It's critical in our community that we keep this going," said Mayor Joyce Craig, who said the program provides money to treat people with substance abuse issues.

Mike Skelton, the chamber's president and CEO, said Medicaid expansion would save hospitals money now devoted to uncompensated care, which "should help put downward pressure on health-care premiums, which all of our members pay."

"I hear every day about how many small businesses struggle to keep up with their health-insurance premiums, their health-care costs overall," Skelton said.

Bill Rider, president and CEO of The Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester, said Medicaid expansion has cut the number of uninsured patients from 15 percent of its clientele to 6 percent, or by nearly 1,000 people a year.

Rider said that has allowed it to use expansion money to help fund other programs, such as a mobile crisis response team.

City resident Diane Larochelle, a former beneficiary of Medicaid expansion, said there needs to be more information given to the public on "how we're going to make it available to consumers" and what choices they have in managing their care.

Business Health Politics New Hampshire

___

(c)2018 The New Hampshire Union Leader (Manchester, N.H.)

Visit The New Hampshire Union Leader (Manchester, N.H.) at www.unionleader.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.