Legislators learned Friday that the state’s Medicaid program is running approximately $65 million over budget for the current fiscal year, a problem attributed largely to the deteriorating economy forcing more people into public assistance programs.
Ryan Low, commissioner of the Department of Administrative and Financial Services, told the Appropriations Committee about the problem Friday during an update on stimulus funding coming to Maine.
Some lawmakers were furious with the timing of the announcement, though Low and others maintained that this problem has been growing for months and was no secret.
Sen. Peter Mills, R-Cornville, a member of the Health and Human Services Committee, faulted Gov. John Baldacci and Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Brenda Harvey for not raising the alarm sooner.
“It’s grotesque,” said Mills. “There (Baldacci) was Tuesday night in front of the teleprompters, talking about expanding health care and there was no mention of this. This bodes very badly for whatever assumptions we’ve made for the next three years.”
House Minority Leader Joshua Tardy, R-Newport, said he and others will be looking into the timing of this announcement.
“We need to find out when they knew about this shortfall,” said Tardy.
But David Farmer, Baldacci’s deputy chief of staff, said the extent of this problem was becoming clear only this week, though there have been repeated warnings over the past few months that Medicaid utilization in the state has been increasing.
“We have been talking about increased utilization for quite some time,” said Farmer. “We were not aware of the exact amount until recently.” Farmer said he did not know exactly when this problem became clear, though he said the announcement was delayed for a couple of days because Low was in Washington D.C. this week gathering information about the stimulus package.
Harvey disputed claims that she or anyone else held back information.
“I don’t think I kept anything from anyone,” she said. “I didn’t know the governor’s plan to deal with it but I have been seeing this coming since November.”
The shortfall is the result of increased utilization in several Medicaid programs including those for the developmentally disabled, adult mental health care and increasing claims from doctors, as well as lower-than-expected savings resulting from earlier cost-cutting initiatives in fiscal year 2009.
Low said the governor proposes using some of the Medicaid stimulus funding coming to Maine to cover the problem, but that the solution requires approval by the Legislature.
Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, cautioned against “jumping to conclusions.”
“I recommend that people take a deep breath and let us take a look at this,” he said Friday afternoon. “There’s a lot that’s happened and a lot that’s going to happen. We’ve had no chance to work on any of this yet.”
Farmer said increased usage of Medicaid programs is a phenomenon happening across the nation, which is part of the reason for the federal stimulus package.
“This is what the stimulus package is for,” he said. “Maine is not alone in this.”
