Lawmakers hope suit delays Medicaid plan

Published 5:00 am Tuesday, August 19, 2008

The yearlong debate over funding the Division of Medicaid’s $90million shortfall went back to the courts Friday, when a group ofabout 40 hospitals finally filed a long-expected lawsuit againstGov. Haley Barbour.

The hospital group is asking the Hinds County Chancery JudgeWilliam Singletary to block, or at least delay, Barbour’s newestplan to raise hospital taxes and cut and modify Medicaidreimbursements. His plan is scheduled to go into effect Sept.1.

Singletary is the same judge who barred the governor fromcarrying out his first plan to trim Medicaid services withoutlegislative approval.

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Officials from hospitals and the Mississippi HospitalAssociation have repeatedly said the purpose of the suit is todelay the governor’s cuts until early 2009, when the Legislaturewill be back in session to deal with the program’s deficitagain.

But Barbour has said his second plan was crafted based on whatSingletary’s original ruling allowed. Even though hospitals havebeen successful in blocking the governor’s cuts twice this year,District 92 Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, believes his latestplan will hold up under judicial scrutiny.

“Singletary’s last ruling opened the door for this to beginwith,” she said. “That’s how [Barbour] came up with this.Constitutionally, he can make the cuts.”

Currie, who supported an MHA-crafted Senate plan that would havetaxed hospitals without service cuts to fund Medicaid, said herbiggest hope in the judicial situation is that the ruling will be along time coming.

“I’d love to see him take a while to come up with the answer,”she said. “I never could believe how much time went by the firsttime he ruled – my hopes are that he will take just as long to comewith this one and hold everything up until we get back insession.”

District 91 Rep. Bob Evans, D-Monticello, believes the hospitalshave filed suit on solid legal ground and expects the court to ruleagainst the governor.

“I don’t believe the law will allow him to bypass theLegislature to do this,” he said.

Evans doesn’t believe the previous ruling against Barbouroutlined any legal authority to make the new plan work.

“It’s just wishful thinking on the governor’s part,” hesaid.

District 53 Rep. Bobby Moak, D-Bogue Chitto, said the governor’snew plan may be a violation of the original ruling altogether,rather than founded upon it.

“This looks like an attempt to go around the court, and anyattempt to go around the opinion of the court is actually aviolation of the opinion itself,” he said. “The court says, ‘Don’tdo X,’ and then the governor tries to do Y. But Y is a violation ofX.”

Moak also pointed to the nature of the governor’s new plan -which has been poked, prodded and challenged statewide by hospitaladministrators and MHA – as another reason that could cause it doderail itself.

He believes the inequality of the distribution of Medicaidreimbursements called for in the plan is so great that the courtwill reject it. Hospital officials have said the plan has a pooreconomic impact study, which is required by law for such achange.

“If you look at the new plan, it is clear they did not run thenumbers to see how it would affect hospitals,” Moak said.

If the governor’s plan is defeated in court, Moak said therewill be nothing for the Legislature to do except sit back and waitfor January. He rejected speculation of another special session tocontinue the debate over funding the program this year.

“We shouldn’t go back into special session over this issue,”Moak said. “If it was so critical in May, and here we are in themiddle of August – and nothing has happened except a lot oflawsuits flying back and forth. Early in the process we said therewas no crisis. We don’t run short of funds until March 2009 whenthe Legislature is back, and that’s where we’ll be.”