State lawmakers learn there is much more to learn about how the federal health care law will impact the state budget...and whether expanding Medicaid under federal rules would benefit or financially cripple the state.
How much will the federal health care law cost the state? No one knows, yet.
State lawmakers learn there is much more to learn about how the federal health care law will impact the state budget...and whether expanding Medicaid under federal rules would benefit or financially cripple the state. Brent Martin has the story. . .
Brent Martin
A couple of legislative committees...holding a joint public hearing...hear that more work must be done to fully calculate the costs of the federal health care law...and to completely understand how much expanding Medicaid might cost the state.
The crux of the problem, according to Legislative Fiscal Office Director Liz Hruska , is that no one knows how many eligible Nebraskans will actually participate. . .
Liz Hruska, director, Legislative Fiscal Office;
The Legislative Fiscal Office is crunching numbers...attempting to get a handle on the cost of the health care law as well as the cost of expanding Medicaid.
The number-crunchers at the State Capitol will be crunching more numbers to determine what fiscal impact the federal health care law will have on the state...and what it might cost Nebraska to expand Medicaid.
Senator Health Mello of Omaha asks Legislative Fiscal Office Director Liz Hruska if some of the work would already have been factored in the state budget. . .
Sen. Health Mello questions Hruska;
Nearly 238-Thousand Nebraskans have no health insurance.
Projections of the cost of implementing the federal health care law will have to become more than just mere projections soon.
Deputy Director of the Legislative Fiscal Office, Tom Bergquist, tells two legislative committees holding a public hearing that it's difficult to peg the cost of implementing the law or determine what it would cost to expand Medicaid under the law. . .
Tom Bergquist, Deputy Director of Legislative Fiscal Office;
The Legislative Fiscal Office continues to crunch the numbers in an effort to provide the legislature with numbers when it convenes in January for the new session.
More work will have to be done before state lawmakers get firm numbers on the cost of implementing the federal health care law...or expanding Medicaid under the law.
Deputy Director of the Legislative Fiscal Office, Tom Bergquist, tells a legislative public hearing that figuring the costs is complicated. . .
Bergquist;
Bergquist says the cost of the law...and the cost of expanding Medicaid depends on how many eligible Nebraskans actually participate in the program.
(courtesy of Nebraska Radio Network)
(Image courtesy of Stock.xchng)
