Whole vs Term

In a recent report, Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine announced that the state health agency is projecting a $308 million deficit in Medicaid funding. “It’s a big deficit,” Levine said in a telephone interview Monday night. “But I think there’s some good news in it. Much of this we believe is nonrecurring.”

Levine went to the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget to delineate the problem and learn how health officials propose to bring the current fiscal year spending back on the right track. There’s no official plan yet but Levine guarantees that private physicians, hospitals, pharmacists and other private health-care providers will be protected against budget cuts this time around. Most of the reductions would probably occur on the public provider side such as in health units and mental hospitals.

Approximately $120 million of the shortfall was said to be related to higher spending because of increased medical billings associated with the H1N1 influenza virus, Levine said. Another part is because DHH could not employ budget savings built into the spending plan until later than anticipated. “Other contributing factors to the deficit projection included increased Medicaid enrollment and usage as well as higher pharmacy program spending”, DHH Undersecretary Charles Castille said.