Central Peninsula Hospital’s CEO Rick Davis attended Governor Bill Walker’s announcement on his intentions for Medicaid expansion in Anchorage today.
Davis: “I met with him afterwards and just thanked him for his leadership. We estimate that about 4,000 people on the peninsula which would become eligible for Medicaid under the new expansion. Assuming about half of them would probably sign up, which is what we’ve seen in other states, so that’d be about 2,000 people who would get coverage that currently don’t have access to primary care and healthcare services, other than just the emergency room.”
Previously Governor Walker stated the expansion could help compensate hospitals like CPH for the uncompensated care they already provide.
Davis: “We currently have about $20 million a year of charity and uncompensated care that we provide to members of our community that can’t pay. A lot of that $20 million is providing care to those 4,000 people who currently don’t have coverage of any kind.”
Medicaid funding was among the budget cuts by the Legislature this year.
Davis said the governor’s Medicaid expansion intentions may help reduce the previously anticipated $120,000 losses based on a Medicaid rate freeze as well.
Davis: “By expanding the pie, it will make more people eligible for Medicaid and it’ll help offset some of those cuts that are probably coming down the road in the per-person funding.”
The governor announced plans to accept federal monies for the Medicaid expansion, in which case the federal government would pay 100% of health care costs through 2016 to state’s that opt in for newly eligible recipients, stepping down to 90% by 2020.