off the charts
POLICY INSIGHT
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
Why Rhode Island Doesn’t Tell Us Anything About a Medicaid Block Grant
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My colleague Donna Pavetti has rebutted claims in an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal that TANF is a model for converting Medicaid to a block grant. The op-ed also cited Rhode Island’s experience under a Medicaid waiver as evidence of the benefits of block-granting Medicaid, but these claims, too, are highly misleading:
This influx of extra federal funds — an independent report commissioned by the state pegged this number at $42 million from 2009 to 2011 — is the exact opposite of what would happen under proposals to block-grant Medicaid, where the goal is to reduce federal spending.