Lawmakers regret TennCare cuts, say governor had no choice
NASHVILLE — Many lawmakers say they regret Gov. Phil Bredesen’s decision to cut more than 320,000 adults from TennCare and reduce benefits for others but believe he had no other choice.
“The advocates put him in a corner,” Rep. Jerome Cochran, R-Johnson City, said Tuesday. “He had to choose between bankrupting the state or those who really need it.”
The governor announced Monday his plan for eliminating 323,000 adults from a program that covers roughly 1.4 million people — while retaining full coverage for all 612,000 children on the program. There also will be limits on prescriptions and hospital coverage for adults and a plan to move back to managed care organizations — as long as they accept part of the financial risk.
While he wished there could have been an alternative to cutting so many enrollees, Cochran said “keeping the children on the rolls was a good decision” and he’s optimistic the governor’s plan will “control the cost of TennCare, which had grown out of control.”
Bredesen first announced in November that he intended to return to basic Medicaid, which would have ended TennCare coverage for about 430,000 people — including about 107,000 children who now will stay on the plan.
The governor has said federal court settlements won by enrollee advocates mean the state can’t afford to continue to provide unlimited health care for the 1.4 million poor, disabled and uninsured residents. The program is budgeted for about $8 billion this year, with the federal government picking up two-thirds of the cost.
“I’m just sorry advocates couldn’t have worked with him in a better way,” said Rep. Phil Pinion, D-Union City. “I wish we could have worked something out.”
However, lawyers at the Tennessee Justice Center, advocates for TennCare enrollees, have said they aren’t to blame for the governor’s decision, which they believe will have terrible repercussions.
“Cuts of that size are unprecedented and unthinkable,” Gordon Bonnyman, the Justice Center’s chief attorney, said Monday.
Bredesen said the cuts will mean he only has to ask the Legislature for about $75 million in new state money to cover TennCare for the fiscal year starting this June, on top of about $2.5 billion the state spends of its own money right now. That would be one of the smaller increases in recent years.
Without reform, Sen. Steve Southerland, R-Morristown, said the governor would have had a tough time funding TennCare without hurting other government programs.
“It’s just a hard decision when you only have ‘X’ amount of dollars,” Southerland said. “You have to make a decision on how to pay. Obviously, we don’t have the money to do that.”
Democratic Leader Sen. Jim Kyle of Memphis believes the plan was the “most responsible under the current legal and economic circumstances.”
“It wasn’t the plan we envisioned when we first started modifying TennCare, but it’s the best chance of maintaining as much care as possible for as many Tennesseans as possible.”
Rep. Dolores Gresham, R-Somerville, said she understands Bredesen “had to do something” — she just hopes it was the right something.
“He ran on the promise he could fix it (TennCare),” she said. “He has been the self-explained expert, that he knows how to fix it. I’m taking him at his word.”