Kansas considers Medicaid changes; California advocates worry about their own overhaul

The Kansas legislature is considering changes to the state's Medicaid program including exempting long-term care services from some planned reforms.

Kansas Health Institute: Committee To Examine KanCare
The House Health and Human Services Committee is scheduled to hold hearings next week on a bill that would exempt long-term care services for the developmentally disabled from the managed care provisions in KanCare, Gov. Sam Brownback's Medicaid reform plan. The panel also will hear testimony on a bill to require an annual evaluation of the state's Medicaid managed care contractors (Ranney, 3/8).

Kansas Health Institute: House Advances Medicaid Eligibility Bill
The Kansas House today advanced a measure that would let prospective Medicaid beneficiaries assign their life insurance policies to the state in order to meet the program's eligibility standards. Currently, life insurance policyholders must cash out and spend the money before qualifying for Medicaid. Legislative backers of the proposal said it would help the state Medicaid program recoup some expenses and help people who need the program but otherwise would have to "spend down" to qualify for it (Shields, 3/8).

In California, some worry patients may suffer as the state overhauls its Medicaid program.

California Watch: Advocates Say Patients Suffer As State Overhauls Medi-Cal
Patients who are being moved into Medi-Cal managed care plans as part of a major statewide policy shift are facing life-threatening obstacles to getting needed care, according to patient advocates who testified in a legislative oversight hearing. An attorney, doctor and lobbyist pleaded with lawmakers on Wednesday to slow the pace of a program overhaul that they say has knocked patients off organ transplant waiting lists or upended care that kept chronic diseases under control. The changes are part of a wide-ranging plan that is meant to improve care and cut costs in the state's Medi-Cal program, California's version of Medicaid. In June, the first wave of Medi-Cal patients moved to managed care plans (Jewett, 3/9).