Johnson: “As Attorney General I will sue Dr. Oz and anyone else I have to sue to keep them within the bounds of the law”
AUSTIN, Texas — Nathan Johnson released a new digital ad today naming Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz as the author of a proposed rule that would pull roughly half a trillion federal dollars out of state Medicaid programs, and committing to sue over it as Attorney General.
Congress cut Medicaid last year. Oz decided it wasn’t enough. The rule he proposed in May takes the payment caps Congress wrote for hospitals, nursing homes, and academic medical centers and applies them to every Medicaid service in the country, then adds a category of payments Congress never mentioned. The difference is not small: $149 billion under the statute vs. $515 billion under Oz’s rule. Texas has more riding on those payments than any state but California, roughly $6.3 billion a year, and 84% of that money pays for hospital care.
“Dr. Oz is proposing to illegally cut another half a trillion dollars out of state Medicaid funds,” said Johnson. “State Attorneys General should stop him, and I will.”
Taking On Oz
To view the full digital ad, WATCH HERE.
Under Oz’s illegal plan:
Property taxes go up. Public hospital districts run on property tax revenue. When the federal match shrinks, the cost of treating uninsured and Medicaid patients does not disappear. It lands on county hospital districts, which have two options: raise the local property tax rate or cut services.
Insurance premiums go up. Hospitals that lose Medicaid reimbursement make it back from commercially insured patients. Employers absorb the higher contract rates and pass them to workers through premiums and deductibles.
Care becomes harder to get. Service lines that close are no longer available to any patient, not just Medicaid patients. In rural Texas, where the nearest labor and delivery unit or emergency room may already be an hour’s drive away, a closed service line means a longer drive or no care at all.
“As Attorney General I will sue Dr. Oz and anyone else I have to sue to keep them within the bounds of the law,” Johnson said.
To view the full digital ad, WATCH HERE.
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