Norton Introduces Another "Free & Equal DC" Bill to Increase Medicaid Reimbursement to DC (11/19/09)

Norton Introduces Another "Free and Equal D.C." Series Bill to Increase Medicaid Reimbursement to D.C.

November 19, 2009

WASHINGTON, DC - As Congress works to pass a healthcare bill to provide insurance to all Americans, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today introduced the District of Columbia Medicaid Reimbursement Act of 2009 to relieve the District of a unique healthcare cost it has borne for years. The District, almost alone among U.S. cities, pays for 30 percent of Medicaid, a state function. New York City is the only local jurisdiction that pays any portion of Medicaid, but it pays only 25 percent. The D.C. Medicaid Reimbursement Act will raise the federal contribution to the District's Medicaid program to 75 percent, at least making D.C. equal to New York City. Although not related to the pending healthcare bill, Norton believes this is the time to complete what she started in 1993 when she got Congress to pay 70 percent, rather than the crippling 50 percent of the cost of Medicaid. Since then, she has succeeded in correcting a formulaic error in the District's Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) allotment and increasing Medicaid reimbursement.

Norton said, "Medicaid is crippling entire states and no city in the country carries the burden we do. Free and equal status means not only budget and legislative autonomy that I now believe we can get following yesterday's hearing. It also means removing old practices that deny the city equal shares."

The Medicaid Reimbursement Act is part of her "Free and Equal D.C." series of bills to eliminate unequal treatment of the District compared with other jurisdictions.