Baker officials grilled on health care cuts
Skeptical lawmakers pressed three top Baker administration officials on the governor’s plan to pare 140,000 people from the state’s budget-busting Medicaid program while boosting fees on employers to cap its out-ofcontrol growth.
Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders insisted Gov. Charlie Baker’s proposal won’t undermine the state’s commitment to health care access.
“We are not cutting benefits here,” Sudders told yesterday’s joint meeting of the Ways and Means Committee and the Health Care Financing Committee. “What we are talking about is preserving coverage.”
The plan removes 140,000 nondisabled adults from MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid program, and places them in Massachusetts Connector plans — all to save millions of dollars and slash the program’s growth from an expected 5.6 percent to 1 percent.
Lawmakers hammered Sudders — who was joined by Administration and Finance Secretary Kristen Lepore and Workforce Development Secretary Rosalin Acosta — because the people pushed into the Connector plans would have to pay out-ofpocket expenses, and the plans don’t include dental coverage.
“I share concerns that we have many poor people for whom a $25 copay for dental insurance isn’t in their budget,” said state Sen. Barbara A. L’Italien of Lawrence. “This will have a very real effect on people regardless of the fact that you can offer a zero-premium plan because they have copay issues.”
State Sen. Viriato M. deMacedo asked what would happen if lawmakers do nothing. Sudders said MassHealth would be forced to make “across-the-board rate cuts” to doctors and hospitals — a tough task given that the Medicaid program already pays out 85 cents on the dollar to providers.
Baker’s measure also raises revenue by boosting the maximum Employer Medical Assistance Contribution from $51 per employee to $77 per employee and requiring companies with employees on MassHealth pay up to $750 for each of those workers.