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Sunday, February 10, 2013

Growing Healthcare Costs Straining Texas Budget.


The AP Share to FacebookShare to Twitter (1/31, Tomlinson) reports, "Texas will use 'all the money that there is available to spend' in the state budget just paying the health care costs of the growing number of poor, disabled and elderly unless dramatic changes are made to the Medicaid system, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said Wednesday." Tommy Williams, a Republican, "called on fellow Texas lawmakers and state agency chiefs to prepare themselves to make tough choices but offered no details on how he would change Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for 3.6 million Texans." At the hearing, "State budget analysts testified that the draft Health and Human Services budget calls for a 3 percent increase in state spending in the 2014-2015 budget cycle but acknowledged that Republican leaders asked them not to factor expected growth in Medicaid caseload or medical inflation into their budget forecast."
        The Texas Tribune Share to FacebookShare to Twitter (1/31, Aaronson) reports, "The Senate's proposed budget includes $22.5 billion in general revenue to fund Medicaid, the joint state-federal health providers for the poor, but does not account for anticipated increases in program costs because of caseload growth, medical inflation or higher utilization in the 2014-15 biennium." Further, "Texas legislators, who underfunded Medicaid last session in the midst of a budget shortfall, must also approve more than $4 billion in supplemental appropriations by March to avoid causing cash flow problems for the Health and Human Services Commission."
        The Dallas Morning News Share to FacebookShare to Twitter (1/31, Garrett) reports that Dr. Kyle Janek, the state's top social services official, told the senators "that Texas Medicaid program managers have come close to hitting their assigned goal of squeezing more than $2.2 billion in state savings in the current two-year budget cycle through various efficiencies and cost-containment moves." Specifically, "by Aug. 31, the efforts will have saved about $1.8 billion in general purpose revenue, or about 80 percent of what lawmakers hoped last session."

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