The state of Kansas recently made cuts to their Med­ic­aid bud­get and it’s effects are begin­ning to be felt. The ten per­cent cuts are not only being felt by the frail and dis­abled but for those who care for them as well. As Kansas politi­cians begin to go back to work for 2010, many are debat­ing if the cuts need to be undone.

From the Topeka Capi­tol Jour­nal Online, writer Bar­bara Hollingsworth takes a look at the debate.

As big cuts hit Medicaid-funded pro­grams — includ­ing agen­cies serv­ing adults with devel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ties, physi­cians serv­ing Kansans in poverty, and nurs­ing homes car­ing for the frail and elderly — Kansas law­mak­ers on Mon­day will con­verge on the Capi­tol for the 2010 leg­isla­tive ses­sion. Even with the dras­tic cuts aimed at bal­anc­ing the bud­get, the Leg­is­la­ture faces a bud­get short­fall of between $300 and $400 million.

“There are seri­ous ques­tions that even if there was a leg­isla­tive desire or will­ing­ness to reverse those cuts, where would they get the money?” asked Jerry Slaugh­ter, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Kansas Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion. “The state can’t print money like the fed­eral gov­ern­ment. If you don’t have the money, you don’t have the money.”

The 10 per­cent cut in Med­ic­aid reim­burse­ment rates was part of $258.9 mil­lion in bud­get adjust­ments announced in Novem­ber, although the Med­ic­aid reduc­tion didn’t go into effect until this month. In all, the 10 per­cent cut is aimed at sav­ing the state about $22 mil­lion through the end of the fis­cal year. How­ever, the loss to Med­ic­aid providers will amount to about $66 mil­lion because the pro­gram relies heav­ily on fed­eral match­ing funds, said Peter Han­cock a spokesman for the Kansas Health Pol­icy Authority.

It wasn’t a deci­sion that was made lightly, said state bud­get direc­tor Duane Goossen.

“The results from doing this are not pos­i­tive things,” he told the Sen­ate Ways and Means Com­mit­tee last month. “They are almost entirely neg­a­tive things.”

Slaugh­ter said med­ical providers are hav­ing to recon­sider if they will con­tinue to accept new Med­ic­aid patients or if they will stop serv­ing Med­ic­aid patients entirely. If the cuts last longer than a few months, he said he antic­i­pates some prac­tices may begin mak­ing deci­sions about cut­backs this sum­mer. As is, he said, many physi­cians barely break even when serv­ing Med­ic­aid patients.

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