NASHVILLE – The Tennessee House on Thursday approved a controversial bill requiring Gov. Bill Lee to seek a Trump administration waiver of Medicaid rules that could dramatically impact how much money the federal government provides to the $12 billion TennCare program.
Following a sometimes-testy debate, the GOP-led chamber approved the measure on a 68-21 party line vote with one Democrat voting present. A Senate committee is expected to take up a companion bill next week.
House Bill 1280 requires Lee to seek federal permission to convert federal funding for TennCare, which now covers some 1.25 million low-income pregnant women, children, the disabled and seniors, into a “block grant” system.
The block grant would provide the state with a set amount of federal money based on a per-person rate to spend on TennCare. In exchange, proponents say, the state would have more flexibility to allocate and spend allotted funds to address state needs. They say that would enable Tennessee to find cost savings.
Now, federal spending matches whatever a state spends on Medicaid based on the state’s per capita income relative to the national average. In Tennessee, the federal government currently pays 65.87%, or around $7.5 billion, of TennCare’s cost. If state spending goes up, federal spending does, too.