Medicaid Long-Term Care Financing in California and Florida

Introduction

            Medicaid is a healthcare program designed by the government to assist citizens who are incapable of acquiring medical support and assistance due to financial cripple-ness.  It has been designed to extend help to the professionally oppressed few through the help of paying the healthcare providers, which of course, depends on the state the person under Medicaid assistance resides (Deal & Shiono, 1998).  Further, the implementation of the aforementioned program is successful that the demarcation line in the issue on health has been resolved and has nevertheless given the citizens of the country a reason to trust their health and their life, at that.  Like other developmental plans crafted by the legislatures of the country, the government does not stop in looking for means to improve the program to meet the challenges brought about by the contemporary society (Harbage, Schneider, & Ryan, 2006).

An overview on the regulation of Medicaid programs

            There appear several groups that are covered with the verity of Medicaid.  States in the country have diverse means in developing their healthcare assistance dependent of course on the immediate condition of the place as well as with other specifications regulated by the national government.  A common or universal provision followed by all local government units—such as eligibility issues and factors that connote qualifications for the medical support—not only that, the program has been carefully crafted to suit best the need of the whole jurisdiction and assure that they will get the right ounce of help they deserve.  Medicaid program in California

            The schema in paying hospital bills and the acquisition of medicinal needs within the citizens of California has transformed enormously through time.  As the needs of the people consistently changes due to the inevitable states of nature, governmental activities and globalization specifics, the residents could only hope that the government that they entrusted their lives with will serve them right.  The changes, which specifically took place on September 1, 2006 with a term of five years, waived a federal authority comprising billion dollars of funds and its eligibility status also stretch in accordance with the change of plans designed to suit the challenges of the contemporary society.  Concisely, the state’s waiver generally limits DSH payments to 22 designated public healthcare centers receiving payments through the mechanism of DSH swap. Hence the allotment ranges between 175 percent limit and reimbursements of the aforementioned hospitals shall be on the basis of allowable Medicaid inpatient hospital costs under 2552-96 cost report (Harbage et al., 2006).

Medicaid program in Florida

            In the state of Florida, they have designed that the waiver in DSH transactions shall not prohibit from the imposition of permissible taxes on any provider class for any purpose which is believed to serve of good help to Medicaid.  Bluntly, it is clear that the difference it has on California’s multi-billion dollar waiver method—having prohibited the imposition of state taxing on inpatient hospital, outpatients, and or physician services.  Florida also establishes a Low-Income-Pool allotting $1billion annually to sum up for the federal and state expenditures on those who are uninsured.  As a matter of fact, Florida’s immediate 59% federal match rate drew down $590 million per year hence providing that the non-Federal funds are acceptable to CMS making its total allocation one of the highest in tax procedures.

Conclusions and further remarks

            Medicaid programs in various states could vary since that the needs of the people in every state does not have common conditions (Smith, 2002).  California, being one of the most civilized states in the country explicitly needs more attention no wonder why they have services which are not accessible to Florida.  Nevertheless, what makes Medicaid grandeur in the arena of “delivery of basic services” comes in handy on the fact that the flow of the program does not stay steady and stagnant along the way since the states are also in implicit competition on which unit has performed its assistance on healthcare provision the best.

References

Deal, L. W., & Shiono, P. H. (1998). Medicaid Managed Care and Children: An Overview. The Future of Children, 8(2), 93-104.

Harbage, P., Schneider, A., & Ryan, J. (2006). California’s Medicaid Hospital Financing Waiver: A Three-Part Perspective. from http://www.chcf.org/documents/policy/MedicaidHospitalWaiversComparison.pdf

Smith, P. C. (2002). Measuring Health System Performance. The European Journal of Health Economics, 3(3), 6.