JULIE APPLEBY: The states have had a rough couple of years, as you know. Because of the recession, the revenues are down, and some folks say now that they are facing the worst year since the Great Depression coming up because they not only have lower revenues as they did, lower than they did before the recession, but also now the stimulus funds are ending and those were funds that came from the federal government to help them with their programs, including Medicaid.
JULIE APPLEBY: Well, the money came with some strings attached - both money from the stimulus program and from the federal health care law in order to pay for Medicaid - and they said you cannot reduce eligibility in Medicaid, so that was a string that was attached. Arizona would like to have that waived. They are saying if they dont have that waived, they are a billion dollars short. There is no more stimulus money coming in, and they are going to have to make deeper cuts to educat
JULIE APPLEBY: Right. They can do that. They can reduce services and they can reduce payments to providers. Those are about their only two options. So some states, for example, California wants to limit to 10 the number of doctor visits Medicaid patients can have in a year and six, the number of prescription drugs they can get in a month.
JULIE APPLEBY: I think some states will slow down, but for the most part states are moving forward with implementation. There is some debate over the court ruling and what affect that will have, but mostly states are saying we have got to move forward because these cases are going to go to the Supreme Court.
