Could be a lot worse. This in today’s State House News Service by Catherine Williams and Michael Norton:
The Bush administration’s top health and human services official said he has “great optimism” for a Massachusetts waiver that is due to expire in seven months and which is critical to continuing state health insurance expansion and access efforts.
Massachusetts’s current three-year waiver, a critical policy and financial underpinning of insurance expansions efforts that have attracted national attention, expires June 30, 2008 and negotiations are expected with Bush administration health and human services officials on another extension.
US Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt, in Boston on Thursday to promote import safety efforts, told the News Service he couldn’t comment on the specifics of the waiver’s status. “I have great optimism for what it represents,” said Leavitt.
The last waiver extension assured Massachusetts of receiving $385 million a year in federal health care funds. The current waiver includes conditions that the Legislature and former Gov. Mitt Romney sought to address in last year’s omnibus health care law – namely compliance with federal “budget neutrality” standards. The waiver’s fate has been cited by Gov. Deval Patrick and top budget aide Leslie Kirwan as important to the success of the health law, which blends new requirements on individuals, government, and business to expand access to health insurance.
Massachusetts Health and Human Services Secretary JudyAnn Bigby said state officials have made it clear to their federal counterparts that the waiver is important to the continued success of health care reform and how Medicaid runs in Massachusetts. “It’s a very important part of our strategy,” said Bigby. …
Leavitt said federal health and human services officials are working “actively and cooperatively” with state officials in monitoring the universal health care reforms passed in 2006 as they relate to the waiver renewal. “We all have a stake in seeing this successfully implemented,” said Leavitt.
According to state documents, Secretary of Health and Human Service JudyAnn Bigby’s office is updating spending, enrollment and health care utilization projections and developing a financing package for an “upcoming” waiver renewal submission to the federal government. Bigby told the News Service that state officials in July filed a letter of intent to file the renewal, and plan to submit the “second part” of the renewal filing to federal officials next month. Bigby said she has “received signals” that Leavitt is supportive. “We look forward to working with him. He wants Massachusetts to be successful and so do I,” said Bigby.
