New research presented at AcademyHealth’s Annual Research Meeting being held in Seattle this week predicts negative effects on health centers if proposed Medicaid financing changes of block grants or per capita caps are enacted.
Researchers from the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health (Milken Institute SPH) tested a model that simulates the effect block granting Medicaid or Medicaid per-capita caps would have on health centers’ revenues and capacity to serve medically underserved communities. Their results show that reducing federal Medicaid funding through either mechanism would cause health centers to lose money and reduce available services, particularly in states that expanded Medicaid. The authors offer recommendations to minimize disruptions to health centers from both federal and state-level changes.
Anne Markus of the Milken Institute SPH’s Department of Health Policy and Management presented the research, Predicting the Impact of Transforming the Medicaid Program on Health Centers’ Revenues and Capacity to Serve Medically Underserved Communities at the meeting on June 26. Markus is the research’s senior author, and her coauthors, all from the Milken Institute SPH Department of Health Policy and Management, are Qian (Eric) Luo, Kan Gianattasio, Julia Strasser, Xinxin Han and Avi Dor.