SAN FRANCISCO — A major U.S. hospital network is downplaying the possibility that Republicans will repeal Obamacare’s dramatic expansion of Medicaid or turn it into a block grant system.
CEO Trevor Fetter, chief executive of Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare, said Monday that he believes repealing the healthcare law’s Medicaid expansion is a lower priority for Republicans than getting rid of other parts of the law, such as its subsidies.
“Medicaid, I think, has also become a lower priority in recent days as Congress struggles over the reality of what it means to repeal without a replacement,” Fetter said at the JPMorgan Healthcare Investors Conference.
Fetter also downplayed the possibility that Congress would cap federal spending on Medicaid through giving out block grants for funding to states.
“I think you may see the efforts to convert Medicaid to block grants take a backseat as Congress tries to figure out how to approach the more urgent problems they have in regard to the exchanges,” Fetter said.
Yet Republicans have advanced both those ideas recently. In their practice bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act last year, they gradually phased down Medicaid expansion and gave states more control over the program. And the “Better Way” health reform proposed by House Speaker Paul Ryan seeks to use block grants.
Should either of those policy shifts occur, and lead to fewer low-income Americans with Medicaid coverage, Tenet and other hospital networks would feel the effects.
“A lot of people don’t fully understand Medicaid is responsible for delivering half the babies that are born in the U.S.,” Fetter said.
Still, the effects of pulling back on Medicaid expansion would be diminished in half the states that didn’t choose to expand the program and where Tenet operates, Fetter noted. Nineteen states have opted out of expanding Medicaid to include people earning up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level.
