PHOENIX – The new federal health-care plan could cost Arizona $7 billion a year if lawmakers here don’t restore the cuts they made to health-care programs, critics say.
Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, said the scheduled elimination of KidsCare on June 15 would put the state at odds with a provision in the new federal program requiring states to maintain their programs as they are when President Obama signs the bill.
She said the threat isn’t simply losing the $3 of federal money for each dollar of state funds for the program that provides nearly free care for the children of the working poor.
Sinema said failure to maintain existing programs makes Arizona ineligible for all federal Medicaid funds – about $7 billion a year for the current program, which has the state funding care for everyone up to the federal poverty level of about $18,300 a year for a family of three.
What’s worse, Sinema said, is that, beginning in 2014, the federal legislation requires states to provide health care for anyone earning up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level. She said if Arizona has not maintained its current program between now and then, the entire burden of expanded coverage would be on Arizona taxpayers.
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