“Colorado is hoping a just-under-the-wire application to the federal government will help soften the blow of Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the recently signed tax and spending measure.
The application is to create what is known as a state directed payments program. Such programs pull down extra federal Medicaid funding that can then be paid to health care providers with the goal of expanding access to care and improving the quality of the care.
Colorado submitted its application to federal health care authorities June 27. Seven days later, President Donald Trump signed the budget bill into law.
The timing is key because the bill puts limits on federal funding for new state directed payments, but “legacy” programs are exempt from those limits. Colorado believes that, by submitting its application prior to the bill being signed, its program will now be grouped in with the legacies.
In a briefing last month to the state legislature’s Executive Committee of the Legislative Council, Bettina Schneider, the chief financial officer for the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, said if the program is approved it could mean up to $378 million in new federal funding per year.”
Read more at the Colorado Sun.