Senate Bill Saves W.Va. Money and Promotes Health

As a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates representing Brooke and Ohio counties, I am always looking for ways to improve healthcare outcomes for people in our state. We did this last legislative session by passing Senate Bill 476, which opened the Medicaid Managed Care program to additional insurance providers.

This bill not only improves healthcare outcomes for those on Medicaid, but it also saves the state money, and saving taxpayer dollars is something that I also take very seriously.

This bill was a success because it introduced the free market into the Medicaid Managed Care program. The free market works because competition improves service while reducing costs.

Prior to the passage of Senate Bill 476, only three insurance plans could participate in the Medicaid managed care program.

This type of bureaucracy was unacceptable and resulted in poor outcomes and high costs for the state.

The same bureaucracy that set the number of companies that could participate in the program selected the plans. The end result was individuals on Medicaid in the state could not select the insurance plan that was right for them. That drove up costs and resulted in healthcare outcomes that were below expectations.

I and the other leaders in the West Virginia Legislature want to make sure we are getting what we pay for. West Virginia spends about $5.3 billion annually on Medicaid. That is a lot of money that is provided to cover the costs for a huge program. Medicaid provides coverage for about 665,000 of the state’s 1.8 million residents.

That’s around 37% of our state’s total population.

More than 50% of our state’s children receive care through Medicaid, and the program provides 76% of the costs for long-term care in West Virginia. We were paying a huge amount of money for this large percentage of our state’s population and quite frankly we were not getting the return on the investment we deserved.

The Medicaid population in this state is not as healthy as those on Medicaid in other states. We had to step in and make changes, and that is exactly what we did.

Increasing competition was the way to improve service. So, with the change in law, any Medicaid provider can apply to provide care in West Virginia. This change allows those in the program to select the Medicaid plan that works best for them. It allows them to select the doctors, nurses and providers that are best for them, and takes that choice out of the hands of bureaucrats.

We need to make sure we’re helping more West Virginians to get healthy. That way they can go to work to support and take care of their families.

This competition will also ultimately mean that those on Medicaid in this state improving their health.

It also means we will finally get our money’s worth when it comes to Medicaid.

As a state, we cannot afford to waste our limited resources. We need more fiscally conservative decisions to be made. Driving down the money the state pays for Medicaid was a wise choice, and it was one the entire state Senate supported. The money we save by making this choice can be allocated to other areas of our budget, areas that need additional funds.

Jimmy Willis is a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates representing Brooke and Ohio counties.