Governors-elect focus on drug costs, Medicaid funds

States are unlikely to have money to do more than hold the line on existing programs, analysts say.

By Joel B. Finkelstein, AMNews staff. Dec. 9, 2002.

Health care issues took a backseat to concerns about the economy in last month's gubernatorial races, but most governors-elect still include health care reforms among their goals for next year.

An analysis of campaign promises compiled by the National Academy for State Health Policy shows that most governors will stick to health care initiatives that either save money or are relatively inexpensive.

Physicians can expect that new and incumbent governors will focus on bringing down the cost of prescription drugs, fitting Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program into shrinking budgets, and creating market-based initiatives, such as tax credits, to help more residents afford health insurance.

"The economy impacted [those campaigning for governorships] in two ways," said Mimi Marchev, senior policy analyst at the academy. "One, their major concern is the economy, and so they're not talking about new initiatives as much as they might otherwise have, and, two, in some ways they are going to be struggling to hold steady now, as opposed to really being able to take a hard look at expanding coverage."

As on the federal level, a main focus in the states has been and will continue to be making prescription drugs affordable for Medicare enrollees and cutting Medicaid prescription costs.

But due to economic considerations, past efforts to create subsidy programs for seniors likely will give way to less-costly bulk purchasing and pharmacy benefit programs in most states, said Richard Cauchi, a health care program manager with the National Conference of State Legislatures. [...]