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The AAMC on April 21 joined America’s Essential Hospitals, the Children’s Hospital Association, and the North Carolina Healthcare Association to file an amicus brief (PDF) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit urging the court to preserve states’ ability to fund their nonfederal share of their Medicaid programs through public funds transferred by local governments, known as intergovernmental transfers (IGTs). The lawsuit, filed by South Carolina, challenges the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS’) disapproval of a state plan amendment because the supplemental Medicaid payments to teaching hospitals it sought to establish would have been financed using IGTs derived from patient care revenues, rather than taxes or appropriations. The amicus brief argues that federal law does not require IGTs to be derived only from state and local taxes or appropriations, and therefore the CMS administrator’s decision conflicts with federal law and regulations and contradicts the agency’s decades-long approach and policies. |
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Notably, the administrator’s decision would deprive providers of a significant amount of Medicaid funding used to care for Medicaid patients. The brief explained, “Amici’s members use Medicaid payments to fund high-cost, negative-margin services (e.g. trauma care, advanced neonatal intensive care, burn care, transplants); expand access to behavioral health care substance use disorder services; improve maternal health outcomes; address chronic conditions, such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity; expand residency training programs, fuel biomedical research to develop lifesaving medical innovations; and increase access in rural areas. If the Administrator’s decision is upheld, Amici’s members will be forced to curtail services that are critical to keeping Americans healthy.” |
- Washington Highlights