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A statehouse committee spent the day Tuesday hearing about what’s being called a massive change in how health care in Iowa is delivered to the poor and disabled. Private companies are scheduled to take over management of the state-federal health care program known as Medicaid which serves more than 560-thousand Iowans. (Russell, 11/4)

A Democratic effort to delay privatization of Medicaid in Iowa failed to advance during a legislative oversight hearing Tuesday. Democratic lawmakers on the bipartisan Health Policy Oversight Committee sought to pass a motion asking Gov. Terry Branstad to hold off on implementing the privatization plan by six months, but Republicans opposed it and the proposal did not move forward. (Lucey, 11/3)

Fourteen major Kansas health care organizations brought Indiana health care officials to Wichita on Tuesday to talk with Kansas lawmakers about Indiana’s approach to Medicaid expansion. Kansas has not expanded Medicaid because of political opposition to the Affordable Care Act, which was created with the intent that all states would expand Medicaid, the state- and federally funded insurance program for people with low incomes or disabilities. Indiana’s conservative legislature and Republican governor have expanded Medicaid. (Dunn, 11/3)

Supporters of expanding Medicaid in Kansas hope the story of how the conservative governor of another “red state” found a way to move forward will motivate Gov. Sam Brownback and Republican legislative leaders to do the same here. They invited a delegation of hospital officials from Indiana to come and talk about how they worked with Republican Gov. Mike Pence and large GOP majorities in the Indiana Legislature to pass a conservative plan that expanded health coverage to more than 350,000 low-income residents of the Hoosier state but required them to share in the costs. (Marso, 11/3)

Eileen Hawley, spokeswoman for [Kansas Gov. Sam] Brownback, said the plan would be a nonstarter for the governor. “Indiana’s policy is not right for Kansas as it does not include a work requirement for able-bodied adults, a plan to first provide services to disabled citizens who are already eligible for additional assistance, and depends upon an unreliable funding source,” she said. (Hart, 11/3)

Prosecutors are seeking the forfeiture of $4.2 million in cash, real estate and other property seized in an investigation of a former state employee charged with stealing millions of dollars from Arizona's health care program for the poor. Michael John Veit, the chief procurement officer for state's Medicaid program, is accused of participating in a scheme in which payments submitted in the name of one of the agency's vendors ended up in the hands of the procurement officer, one of his associates and some of Veit's family members. (Billeaud, 11/3)

The Government Accountability Office and the federal advisory panel on Medicaid reiterated their calls Tuesday for states to better document and report the extra payments they make to providers that fall outside the federal disproportionate-share hospital programs. The lack of transparency, the GAO says, limit the federal government's ability to make sure the payments are efficient and actually support Medicaid beneficiaries. In one analysis, the agency found that supplemental payments to about 500 hospitals in 39 states exceeded the costs of caring for Medicaid patients by $2.7 billion. (Muchmore, 11/3)

With backing from the Florida Children and Youth Cabinet, a Senate committee Monday approved a bill (SB 248) that would allow thousands of immigrant children to receive health coverage through the KidCare subsidized insurance program. The Health Policy Committee approved the bill, sponsored by Sen. Rene Garcia, a Hialeah Republican who has long pushed for the KidCare expansion. The bill would eliminate a five-year waiting period for "lawfully residing" immigrant children to receive coverage. Senators have backed the change in the past, but the House has not gone along. (11/3)