By Andy Marso
KHI News Service
KANSAS CITY, KAN. — When Gov. Sam Brownback announced this week a list of stopgap measures to close a $280 million budget hole, one of the biggest chunks was $55 million from a "Kansas Department of Health and Environment Fee Fund Sweep" made possible in part by a federal law the governor has strenuously opposed and criticized.
The $55 million comes from a Medicaid drug rebate program that was expanded as part of the federal Affordable Care Act.
The health reform act, commonly known as Obamacare, increased the refunds that pharmaceutical companies must pay states for prescriptions provided to Medicaid patients and allowed states to collect rebates for Medicaid prescriptions administered by managed care organizations.
“I know the extension to the managed care plans was a big deal, because that’s where states have been moving,” said Stacey Mazer, a senior staff member at the National Association of State Budget Officers. “That piece (of the ACA) was something that was a net gain essentially for states, the fact that it was being applied to the Medicaid managed care plans.”
Mazer, who monitors and studies how federal health care and Medicaid policies affect state budgets, said she could not say how much of a financial gain the legislation represented for specific states.
