Dan Way writes here about North Carolina’s Medicaid shortfall. Take a few moments to read this, as this problem isn’t going away anytime soon. And, if Obamacare survives its legal challenge, the state will be forced to add 400,000 to 500,000 people to the program in 2014.
State officials are scrambling to close a Medicaid shortfall that could be as high as a quarter-billion dollars, or risk being unable to deliver services to recipients and make payments to providers.
“We begin having cash problems about two weeks from now,” state budget director Andy Willis said April 17.
State lawmakers are pushing to inject more fiscal discipline and better forecasting into Medicaid budgeting to end a series of annual overruns that have required tapping into the state’s General Fund. The shortfall was $200 million two years ago and $600 million last year.
Much of this year’s deficit is a cash-flow problem caused by a federal delay in approving several cost-saving Medicaid plan amendments North Carolina officials have proposed. This delay has held up money owed to the state. Willis is confident the changes will be approved, but many may not be finalized before the June 30 end of the fiscal year.
