Audits of other states’ records are planned
“It is inevitable that in a big rollout of new eligibility for any public program there are going to be glitches in implementation,” said Kathy Hempstead, a health-policy expert and senior adviser at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “The inspector general wants to make sure that states are being sufficiently careful.”
Nationwide, Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program designed for the poor, is the country’s largest health insurance program, covering 74 million Americans. In the past year, Republican efforts to reduce Medicaid funding and enrollment have sparked intense political debates and loud protests over the size and scope of the public program.
The federal government footed the entire cost of Medicaid expansion during the first three years, instead of taking the usual approach of splitting the costs with states. Now, states are picking up more of the bill. Their share of the costs will grow to 10 percent by 2020.