Kansas move to Medicaid managed care draws advice, skeptics

Kansas officials readying a move to managed care in their Medicaid program are getting an earful from a host of sources, including other state leaders who have instituted managed care.

Kansas Health Institute News: Other States Provide Perspectives On Move To Managed Care 
Kansas is part of a new wave of states moving to expand managed care to higher numbers of their Medicaid patients. Gov. Sam Brownback's KanCare plan, unveiled in November, would begin moving virtually all the state's 380,000 Medicaid enrollees into managed care plans on Jan. 1. … As part of our reporting over the past few months, we have interviewed dozens of people involved in various ways with Medicaid managed care expansions across the nation. What follows are various perspectives gleaned from some of those interviews (Shields, 6/18).

Kansas City Star: Wichita Crowd Voices Concerns About Governor's Plan To Reform Medicaid
State health officials received a lot of feedback, nearly all of it negative, at a public meeting Monday in Wichita about Gov. Sam Brownback's plan to reform Medicaid. … Brownback's plan, called KanCare, would move nearly all of the state's 380,000 Medicaid beneficiaries into managed care plans run by private insurance companies beginning Jan. 1. State officials have said that will slow the growth of Medicaid costs and save the federal and state governments more than $850 million over five years while improving health outcomes. Five insurance companies have bid for three state contracts. None of the speakers favored the idea (Mann, 6/18).