The Department of Health Services (DHS) announced yesterday that it will hold another town hall meeting to gather input on Medicaid budget cutting from consumers, community partners and providers. The meeting will be on Thursday, April 28th from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM at the Liberty Hall Conference Center in Kimberly (800 Eisenhower Drive). Quoting from the DHS announcement: “Our Town Hall meeting is designed to collect ideas on efficiencies and cost-savings to meet this amount while improving overall consumer care, streamlining program delivery and stabilizing the program to ensure long-term sustainability.”
As we have noted before, the budget repair bill (which is still in legal limbo because of a court injunction) will give DHS the authority to make sweeping policy changes to achieve savings in the Medicaid and BadgerCare budgets. The Governor’s budget bill recommends the size of those cuts (roughly $500 million in state funding and more than $1 billion in combined state and federal funds), but once Act 10 becomes law the choices about how to make the cuts will be decided by DHS, not by the Legislature. A WCCF analysis summarizes the power that will be transferred to DHS by Act 10.
The department’s town hall meetings provide opportunities for public comment on what DHS should and shouldn’t do to achieve the spending reductions that the budget bill is likely to require. Individuals who are interested in testifying will have up to 3 minutes to share their ideas. If you can’t attend the latest forum or can’t cover all you might like to say in 3 minutes, you can submit your comments and recommendations electronically at http://bit.ly/dInAXp.
Although we don’t know specifically what DHS may be contemplating to achieve the cuts the Governor has recommended, Secretary Smith has shed at least a little light on some of the options that he appears to favor. Some of his ideas are outlined in his testimony before the Joint Finance Committee earlier this month. Courtesy of Wisconsin Eye, you can watch Smith’s testimony and the Q and A portion of his appearance by clicking here.
Jon