WASHINGTON — The Trump administration appears to have scrapped one of the key tools the Obama administration used to encourage states to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
The shift involves funding that the federal government provides to help hospitals defray the cost of caring for low-income people who are uninsured. Under a deal with Florida, the federal government has tentatively agreed to provide additional money for the state’s “low-income pool,” in a reversal of the previous administration’s policy.
The Obama administration balked at providing more money to help hospitals cope with the costs of “uncompensated care” for people who could be covered by Medicaid. If Florida expanded Medicaid eligibility, the Obama administration said, fewer people would be uninsured, and hospitals would have less uncompensated care.
Under the Obama administration, the amount of the Florida low-income pool fell to $608 million a year, from $1 billion. Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican who had pushed for years to bolster the state’s low-income pool, and the Trump administration recently announced that the pool would grow to $1.5 billion a year.
