Miss. Governor Says Federal Funds to Help Pay Mounting Katrina Bills

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Miss. Gov. Haley Barbour says $520 million in federal funds for Medicaid and other health care expenses means Mississippi should be able to pay its mounting Hurricane Katrina bills.

U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said Friday that the federal government will cover Mississippi’s Medicaid costs for the first half of 2006, about $368 million. The state also will receive $75 million to reimburse hospitals and doctors who cared for people who didn’t have any private or government insurance.

Another $73.5 million will shore up the Children’s Health Insurance Program and $2.4 million for medical bills for Medicaid evacuees who received care in other states.

“This was very important,” Barbour said Friday. “Our Legislature goes home next weekend, and we need the Legislature to reallocate some of this out of Medicaid and put it in the disaster trust fund.”
Barbour wants lawmakers to put $270 million once designated for Medicaid funding into the state’s disaster trust fund, to cover Mississippi’s share of its cleanup and recovery.

The state has received one bill from the federal government for more than $50 million for its match of federal cleanup and recovery money.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Johnny Stringer, D-Montrose, has said lawmakers will likely oblige the request to fund the disaster trust.

Mississippi is one of many states that will receive about $2 billion total for health care costs, including treatment and care of people who fled Katrina. About $500 million of the money released Friday has yet to be earmarked. Barbour said Mississippi will likely receive a portion of that funding.

“We didn’t know how much we were going to get on CHIP, so that real good for us,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Jack Gordon, D-Okolona.

Gordon said he will probably follow Barbour’s suggestion to take $90 million from the Medicaid funds for the federal-state health insurance program and set aside $278 million to meet federal matching requirements for hurricane relief.