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Ask Congress to delay harmful Medicaid regulations |
The
Bush Administration proposed a number of Medicaid regulations that if
enacted, would cause a great deal of harm to our most vulnerable
populations, including children, seniors and people with disabilities. These
regulations would also shift additional health care costs to already
over-burdened state and local budgets.
Please urge your Senators and Representative to support legislation that
does not reduce access to health care by extending current suspensions or
implementing new suspensions on more recently issued regulations.
Additionally, if your organization would like to sign on to a letter that
will be sent to all members of the Illinois delegation, please review a
copy
of this letter and to fill out a form to add your organization’s name to the
list.
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Dear Senator/Representative:
Over the last year the Administration has proposed or issued regulations that will force states to make significant changes to Medicaid. If implemented, the changes will withdraw federal support for important health care services and threaten access to health care for millions of our most vulnerable citizens. By shifting costs to the state and to local governments, the regulations would force difficult choices between critical education, public health, and social services.
As a broad cross-section of advocates and health care and social services providers, we strongly urge you to protect our state from these harmful changes by passing legislation to extend existing moratoria on harmful regulations and to delay additional regulations that will go into effect if Congress fails to act. (Click here to view a table that provides more detail about the regulations and pending legislation.)
Last year, Congress acted on a bipartisan basis to pass legislation to temporarily delay implementation of regulations that would have significantly restricted federal support for services provided to children in schools, for rehabilitation services provided to children and people with disabilities, and for our health care safety net. These moratoria are scheduled to expire this spring and will be particularly damaging for seniors, children and people with disabilities if the regulations go into effect. Other pending regulations will jeopardize critical case management services and access to other important health care services.
While these regulations are harmful in their own right, they are even more troubling because – if not delayed – they will shift millions of dollars in health care costs to state and local budgets at a time when they are already under pressure due to the slowing economy.
We ask that you extend the existing moratoria on changes in school-based and rehabilitation services and hospital payments and enact new moratoria to address other recent Administration actions that endanger healthcare by limiting access to case management services as well as providers’ ability to provide other key health care services will help protect Medicaid beneficiaries and the health care providers they rely on.
Please
support efforts to protect our most vulnerable citizens, who rely on
Medicaid as well as our health care safety net and other critical state
services, underway to extend existing moratoria before their expiration
this spring and to implement additional moratoria on more recently
issued regulations.
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