In its simplest form, the tax maneuver works like this: When a Medicaid patient goes to the hospital, the federal government and state usually share the costs. The ratio varies from one state to another, depending on how poor the state is, but the federal government often pays around 60 percent of the bill.
Source: Mark Levine at Bloomberg
Today is the deadline for the Trump Administration to decide whether it should defend a Biden-era rule beefing up enforcement of mental health parity and addiction coverage. It should not bother. Mental health parity is a set of rules and regulations that require health plans to cover mental health treatments to the same level as it does for physical health. The original act dates back to 1996, while addiction equity of treatment was added in 2008. At its most basic, mental health parity requires health plans to cover mental health conditions to the same dollar limits as physical health care.
Lowering the FMAP for the expansion population, applying per-capita caps to the entire Medicaid population, eliminating states’ ability to charge provider taxes, applying per-capita caps to the expansion population only, and repealing the Biden administration’s eligibility and enrollment rules.
would cut the federal deficit by as much as $710 billion, result in up to 8.6 million people losing Medicaid coverage and up to 3.9 million becoming uninsured.