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An analysis of KanCare performed by a former Republican governor’s think tank found that the switch to managed care Medicaid in Kansas has delivered on cost-cutting promises but not on quality of care. Leavitt Partners, a policy consulting shop founded by former Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt, performed the analysis between May and October by interviewing KanCare providers and reviewing federal and state data. “Across the providers that we interviewed and surveyed, there was general agreement that KanCare has not met its original rationale and commitments,” Robin Arnold-Williams, a principal at Leavitt Partners who specializes in Medicaid, said in a written summary of the analysis. (Marso, 11/17)

In Sabetha, Kan., Jody Reel and her husband own a pharmacy and do their own plumbing because they can’t afford a plumber. That part they can understand — if you own a small business, sometimes you have to be flexible. But what troubles her is how changes in Kansas to the Medicaid program have made things more difficult for both her and her customers. Because of those changes, she said, she’s technically losing money on every Medicaid prescription. (Woodall, 11/17)

Frustration among legislators and Medicaid service providers with management of Kansas’ privatized system resurfaced Thursday in conjunction with a consulting firm’s report asserting the overhaul failed to deliver on promises of improvement in quality of health care. The critique occurred as the administration of Gov. Sam Brownback faced a $350 million tax revenue shortfall in the current state budget and worked to develop new contracts with insurance companies running the $3 billion KanCare system serving 400,000 poor, disabled and elderly Kansans. (Carpenter, 11/17)

Gov. John Bel Edwards will be proposing that higher education be cut by $18 million and the state delay Medicaid payments again to health care providers to deal with the state's $315 million midyear budget deficit. ... But the bulk of the $315 million midyear budget deficit will be dealt with by pushing off $152 million worth of financial payments to Medicaid providers into the next year. The payments will eventually have to made -- so the expense doesn't go away -- but delaying them will help the state avoid substantial cuts in the short term. (O'Donoghue, 11/17)

The number of emergency room visits in Kentucky hasn’t gone up much since Medicaid expanded or people started getting coverage on the individual market. That’s according to a new report from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky. ... Now, more of them have Medicaid coverage, but they’re using the coverage for the same type of ER visit. The percentage of people in the emergency room with Medicaid coverage did increase quite a bit by 2015, with almost half covered by Medicaid. That’s up from 30 percent in 2012. (Gillespie, 11/18)

Not only will state lawmakers’ efforts to establish a TennCare expansion pilot program using federal Medicaid funding continue under a Trump administration, Tennessee’s congressional delegation is likely to be engaged in the coming months, members of a special task force said Thursday. “It’s going to be very important … to be very close to our congressional delegation to give us guidance to make sure that what we’re doing is going to maximize the ability of Tennessee,” said Tony Spezia, CEO emeritus of Covenant Health. Spezia, who joined the task force for the first time Thursday, discussed the idea of engaging the delegation as part of a larger discussion on the prospect that the federal government could issue block grants for Medicaid funding under a Trump administration. (Ebert, 11/17)