DHH to plug funds shortfall
by MARSHA SHULER - Advocate (excerpt)

The state’s health agency is using $66 million in “one-time money” to help close a midyear funding shortfall, money planned for use next budget year when the fiscal situation is expected to worsen, state health chief Alan Levine said Thursday.

Meanwhile, the head of LSU’s hospital system testified that changes in federal reimbursement policy for care of the uninsured could cost the state’s 10 public hospitals $170 million. “We would have to close five to seven hospitals to generate the state funds and redistribute (the money) to the open hospitals to cover costs,” LSU System Vice President Fred Cerise said.

The two top state health officials briefed the state Senate Finance Committee on an increasingly bleak picture for funding state health care for the poor and uninsured from this budget year into the next. The double-whammy is caused by a state revenue downturn and changes in federal health-care policy, they said. Levine advised legislative budget leaders he was dipping into a special pot of “one-time funds” — federal stimulus dollars — to help offset a $155 million state funding cut to the state Department of Health and Hospitals.