From NC Policy Watch 12/12/11:

Click the link below to listen to radio interview with Rep. Verla Insko (former co-chair of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Health and Human Services) as she discusses the $139 million shortfall in NC’s Medicaid budget.

Rep. Verla Insko Radio Interview

From WRAL.com 12.13.11

State lawmakers overseeing Health and Human Services met all day Tuesday in Raleigh. But the $139 million Medicaid cash shortfall didn’t even make their agenda.

State Health and Human Services Secretary Lanier Cansler says the program, which serves more than a million people in North Carolina, will not be able to achieve more than $350 million in cuts mandated by the state budget under its current operations.

Cansler says the budget offers him only one option to accomplish the required savings: deep cuts to optional services and to the reimbursement rates the state pays Medicaid providers.

Republican leaders say those cuts won’t happen.

Even if the state were to try to make those cuts, budget co-chairman Rep. Nelson Dollar (R-Wake) said Tuesday, the federal government would not approve them. “It’s a practical impossibility,” he said. “I think that maybe some people who’ve been worried about that should not be.”

When committee Democrats asked why the shortfall wasn’t on the agenda, Dollar said it’s up to Governor Bev Perdue and Secretary Cansler to find the money to cover the problem.

“We’ve extended a hand to the governor’s office to work with her, and have gotten a lot of politics in return,” Dollar said.

Advocates say they’re less interested in the politics of the battle than its potential casualties: Medicaid enrollees worried about losing vital services.

For more on this story (including video footage), click HERE.

UPDATE (most recent):  The Senate will not meet in Jan. 3,  only the House will meet. 

UPDATE:  This meeting has been Rescheduled.  Below are the updated date and time.

House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services will meet as follows:

DAY & DATE:  Tuesday, January 3, 2012

TIME:              1:00 pm

LOCATION:     643 LOB

TOPIC:  2011-12 Budget Implementation Update

From the NC Health Report (the Newsletter of the NC Health Access Coalition) 12.6.11

From WRAL.com 12.5.11

Raleigh, N.C. — North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services officials said Monday that state lawmakers have changed their tune about finding funds to fill a projected $139 million Medicaid budget shortfall, forcing them to consider making catastrophic cuts to the program.

Unless lawmakers find more money for Medicaid, many adult services, like hospice care and mental health care, could be on the chopping block. The state could also reduce reimbursements to physicians who treat Medicaid patients by up to 20 percent, DHHS officials have said.

They say lawmakers publicly pledged to help fill the shortfall in October after it became clear that the agency couldn’t make the $356 million in cuts required in the state budget.

“We are not going to cut services, and we are not going to cut rates to make up for one-time liabilities,” said state Rep. Nelson Dollar, R-Wake, in October.

Speaker Thom Tillis also said at the time that lawmakers were looking at a $150 million surplus to plug the funding hole.

“That (money) could be appropriated for those areas where we’re coming up short without necessarily having to go back and cut any reimbursement rates or programs,” he said.

Legislative leaders have since privately indicated to DHHS officials that the money isn’t coming, according to correspondence between legislative leaders and Health and Human Services Secretary Lanier Cansler obtained by WRAL News.

That leaves officials with two options – ”large-scale rate cuts or the elimination of some optional services,” DHHS Deputy Secretary Michael Watson said.

For more on this story, click HERE.