The federal government released data today showing the cost of procedures at hospitals in all 50 states that are paid by Medicare. See news stories here and here. As this Wonkblog graph highlights, the good news is that providers in West Virginia tend to charge less than most states on a number of inpatient procedures.…
Health
By any measure, expanding Medicaid is a win all the way around. Lives will be saved and the quality of life will be improved for tens of thousands of West Virginia families. Health care providers and other consumers will find relief from bearing the costs of uncompensated care. And West Virginia’s economy will benefit from…
Over the last several months, federal policymakers have been considering changing the inflation measure used to calculate the annual cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) of Social Security payments from the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) with the chained-CPI. On Friday, the U.S. Senate voiced opposition to adopting the chained-CPI, although President Obama…
One of the biggest items of interest in Governor Tomblin's proposed FY 2014 budget is Medicaid. Base budget appropriations for Medicaid totaled $568 million, an increase of $142 million from FY 2013. This increase in base budget appropriations has created the perception that the state is spending $142 million more on Medicaid than it did…
On Sunday, Gazette gossip columnist Phil Kabler pointed out that John Raese - a West Virginia Republican politician and owner of Greer Industries in Morgantown - "was No. 2 among the top 100 purchase card vendors in the state, making $12,998,945 off the state in 2012." The fact that Mr. Raese receives so much money from…
Hospitals in West Virginia will face higher costs if the state fails to expand Medicaid to 130,000 low-income West Virginians under the Affordable Care Act. According to a recent study by John Graves in the New England Journal of Medicine, hospitals will see a reduction in federal Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH or "dish") payments that…
Expanding Medicaid to 130,000 West Virginians would provide $281 million in uncompensated care savings, according to a new report by the Urban Institute. Taking these savings into account, the total cost of expanding Medicaid in the state would by only $338 million or just $33.8 million per year over the next ten years (2013-2022). This…
With the 2012 election firmly behind us, now is the time to fully implement the Affordable Care Act and ensure that no one in West Virginia is without health care coverage. In 2011, approximately 272,000 West Virginians between the ages of 18 and 64 lacked health coverage. As we highlighted in this recent report, about…
Nearly 130,000 West Virginia parents and other adults could get health insurance through an expansion of Medicaid to allow more working families to participate, as outlined in the law. Expansion promises to lower costs for hospitals that treat large numbers of patients without insurance, costs which now add up to more than $700 million in…
On Thursday Gov. Tomblin stated that he needed more time and information before deciding whether or not the state would move along with the expansion of the state's Medicaid program as part of the Affordable Care Act. While the health reform law calls for states to increase Medicaid eligibility to 138 percent of the federal poverty…