Tennessee governor pitches Medicaid reform

Bredesen, a Democrat delivering his party’s weekly radio address, said Medicaid reform needs to be discussed alongside other important issues such as national security, the economy and Social Security.

He called for a program that requires copays, focuses on the most-needed medications and procedures and bans drugs that have a marginal effect.

“Let’s scrap the old, inefficient version of Medicaid that’s led us to spend more and more of our finite resources on a system that never yielded the kind of public health results we’d hoped for,” Bredesen said in his prerecorded message.

“Uncontrolled growth in the cost of Medicaid is a crisis that’s forcing states to choose between quality health care on one hand and a quality education for our children on the other,” he said.

Bredesen is in the midst of a court fight to reform Medicaid in Tennessee, called TennCare, and cut up to 323,000 people from the rolls. Under his plan, about 1 million Tennesseans would retain coverage with reduced benefits.

Unchecked growth in the program has cut into funding for schools and forced Tennessee to chop or reduce many programs, Bredesen has said.

Many states have been struggling with rising health care costs and double-digit growth in their Medicaid programs.

Nationally, the program covers nearly 60 million people and costs taxpayers about $300 billion. The federal-state program differs widely from state to state, but generally aims to provide a safety net for the poorest and, in some cases, the sickest.

Bredesen has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2008, but he has played down the suggestion.

———

On the Net:

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: http://www.cms.hhs.gov