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| Medicaid, prisons could drain General Fund |
| By montgomeryadvertiser.com |
| Published: 03/17/2011 |
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The financial needs of Alabama Medicaid and the Alabama Department of Corrections are so great that they threaten to crowd out the needs of the other agencies paid out of the General Fund. The combined need of both agencies raised the shortfall for the fiscal 2012 General Fund budget from about $555 million, as projected by the state Legislative Fiscal Office, to $738 million, according to the chairman of the Senate budget committee that must figure out how to fill the hole. The loss of federal stimulus dollars and the continuing increase in the number of people in Alabama who are eligible for Medicaid has doubled what the state needs just to level fund existing services. Fluctuating federal funding and a continued increase in the number of people incarcerated by the state also is increasing the funds needed by the Department of Corrections. The new head of Alabama Medicaid said Wednesday that the $700 million is needed to continue level funding of the program that now pays for more than half of the births in Alabama, health care for 40 percent of all children in the state, and two-thirds of all nursing home care. Dr. R. Bob Mullins, who was appointed commissioner by Gov. Robert Bentley, and a state financial official said most of the patient services offered by Alabama Medicaid are mandatory except for its prescription drug program, which they said is not realistic to cut. "It would be like giving you lumber, brick and mortar to build a house and no nails," he said. Although he didn't specify, Mullins said there are potential areas where cuts could and would be made, but they likely won't make a dent in the $700 million the program needs. "We've gotten about as lean as we can get," Mullins said. Read More. |
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