With Medicaid taking an ever-growing share of the Maryland state budget, the time is here for state policymakers to reform the program to ensure its affordability. If not, Medicaid will continue its unchecked growth, guaranteeing budget problems for years to come.
Other states have enacted Medicaid reforms that seem to have produced spending restraint and improved service for Medicaid recipients. Maryland should learn from these states and consider the following remedies:
- Establish a task force to evaluate the variety of options that exist for restricting the state's Medicaid program.
- Demand greater flexibility from the federal government so the state can tailor its Medicaid program to better fit the needs of Marylanders in the program.
- Reform and expand the state's managed care system so that it offers better service and provides greater budget predictability.
- Provide health care coverage in different ways to many who currently receive or who will soon receive Medicaid.
Other states have applied these measures and subsequently improved their Medicaid systems. Maryland policymakers should learn from innovations in other states and use these reforms to help slow the growth in Maryland's Medicaid spending and improve health care services.
Marc Kilmer is a Maryland Public Policy Institute senior fellow specializing in health care issues. Besides his work with MPPI, he also works with the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, a free market think tank in Ohio. Kilmer has a Bachelor of Arts in history and political science from Hillsdale College in Michigan and lives in Salisbury, Maryland, with his wife and daughter.
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