Diverse health care and government interests are rallying around their opposition to the proposed Medicaid fiscal accountability rule.

The regulation, proposed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in November would impose new limits on the ability of states to finance their share of their Medicaid spending, potentially jeopardizing provider payments and the ability of high-volume Medicaid providers to operate without suffering great losses.

In all, CMS received more than 4200 written comments in response to the proposed regulation, most of them expressing opposition.  Among those doing so were state governments, the National Governors Association, hospitals and hospital associations, nursing home operators, and health advocacy organizations.  Also among them was the National Alliance of Safety-Net Hospitals.  In summarizing its opposition, NASH wrote in a formal comment letter to CMS on behalf of private safety-net hospitals that

While NASH supports greater transparency in Medicaid, that support is outweighed by too many troubling aspects of the proposed regulation. In this letter, NASH is especially interested in commenting on five aspects of the proposed regulation: how it would deprive states of important, established policy-making prerogatives; its creation of major new administrative burdens for state governments and for hospitals; its inappropriate regulation of financing of the state share of Medicaid spending; its proposed introduction of new, unspecified standards that state Medicaid programs would be held accountable for meeting; and its violation of the Administrative Procedures Act.

See NASH’s entire letter here.

Learn more about the Medicaid fiscal accountability rule, what it seeks to do, and why so many oppose in the Stateline article “Medical Groups Slam Trump Medicaid Rule.”