Latest news with #Medicaid-related
Axios
20-05-2025
- Business
- Axios
How much federal funding Austin-area school districts get
Local school districts in Texas are struggling with funding deficits and could face more shortfalls under a Trump administration plan to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. Why it matters: As the White House signals that less help could be coming, Texas public school districts are closing campuses while facing teacher shortages and falling school performance ratings. Driving the news: Austin ISD officials announced Friday that they're gathering public input to identify campuses for closure "to avoid deeper budget cuts." "Currently, our resources are spread too thin, leaving all schools feeling under-resourced," AISD's newsletter says. "Consolidating schools will allow us to invest more fully in fewer campuses." The big picture: Education has been a focus of the Texas Legislature this year. Gov. Greg Abbott this month signed legislation creating a $1 billion private school voucher program. Lawmakers are also advancing long-sought legislation to bolster public school funding. The Texas House last month passed House Bill 2, which would spend nearly $8 billion to increase per-student funding by $395, among other measures. The Senate last week released its counter-proposal, which would increase per-student funding by just $55, per the Texas Tribune. Reality check: It's unclear precisely how the potential demise of the Education Department will affect federal funding to local school systems. The department is the primary source of federal money to local schools, but not the only one. Zoom in: Public schools across Texas receive about $13.4 billion in funding from federal sources, per Census Bureau data. That's about $439 per person, making Texas No. 9 in the nation for per person federal school funding. Austin ISD gets about 17% of its revenue from federal sources. That's more than $216 million. What they're saying: Federal funding goes to teacher positions, contracted services and support staff, according to Christy Fox, executive director of state and federal compliance and accountability for Austin ISD. Federal funding also covers professional learning and development for teachers, emergent bilingual education, gifted and talented services, child nutrition and more, Fox adds. "Given the district's current financial situation, any loss of funding has a significant impact," Fox tells Axios. "This was evident when anticipated funding" for reimbursements for Medicaid-related services provided to students " declined from $16 million to $4 million in FY 2024-25, highlighting the challenges of maintaining essential services amid a budget deficit." Between the lines: Nationally, federal funds now make up an average of about 14% of a public school system's budget, with more typically going to lower-income areas. Other area districts counted federal funding among their revenue in 2023: Eanes ISD: 4.8% Pflugerville ISD: 9.9% Lake Travis ISD: 3.3% Lago Vista ISD: 3.7% Del Valle ISD: 16.3% Manor ISD: 12.5% University of Texas Elementary Charter School: 20.4% University of Texas University Charter School: 28.8% The other side: Trump's order to close the Education Department is a step toward fulfilling one of his campaign promises: removing federal oversight of states' public education systems.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump admin officials pen NYT op-ed describing welfare restrictions as an ‘opportunity': ‘Work is transformative'
Trump administration officials are championing Republican proposals to put new work requirements and other restrictions on mainstay social welfare programs like Medicaid, despite fierce protests from disability advocates and criticism from prominent Democrats. In an op-ed published Wednesday in The New York Times, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Mehmet Oz, Brooke Rollins, and Scott Turner — the heads of Health and Human Services, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, respectively — wrote that while welfare programs were 'created with a noble purpose,' they are now 'breaking under the weight of misplaced priorities.' 'Too many able-bodied adults on welfare are not working at all,' they wrote. 'And too often we don't even ask them to. For many, welfare is no longer a lifeline to self-sufficiency but a lifelong trap of dependency.' 'This is about opportunity,' they added. 'We believe that work is transformative for the individual who moves from welfare to employment.' This week, House Republicans released the text of the Medicaid-related aspects of their large-scale domestic policy package, which the Trump administration often calls the 'One Big, Beautiful Bill.' The proposal requires able-bodied adults without children or dependents to work, volunteer, or seek training at least 80 hours per month to qualify for the low-income healthcare program. People younger than 19 and older than 64 would be exempt, as would pregnant women, foster youth, former foster youth up to the age of 26, people with disabilities, members of Native American tribes or people already in compliance with work requirements for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, formerly known as welfare. Elsewhere, Republicans are hoping to expand work requirements to qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, which replaced food stamps in 2008. Polling from KFF suggests the vast majority of Americans think funding for Medicaid should be increased or stay the same, while a sizable majority supports work requirements for adults. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has found that the proposed changes to Medicaid, along with the expiration of tax credits related to the Affordable Care Act and other provisions, could increase the number of people without health insurance by 13.7 million. The GOP's welfare proposals have prompted pushback from some quarters. Disability rights protesters were thrown out of a Tuesday hearing on Medicaid at the Capitol, while Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has accused Republicans of 'robbing people in order to hand it over to the rich.' 'They're not just out here to cut health care for health care's sake, they have an assignment,' the New York Democrat told Rolling Stone. 'Their assignment is to cut the taxes of their donors, and to have giveaways to Big Oil, which financed their election, Big Tech, which financed their election, Elon [Musk], [Jeff] Bezos, etc.'
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
DeSantis' reasoning behind $10 million to Hope Florida charity questioned
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration this week released its most detailed explanation to date on its legal reasoning behind diverting $10 million in Medicaid settlement money to the Hope Florida Foundation. In short, only $57 million of a $67 million legal settlement Florida made with the Medicaid contractor Centene was considered 'potential Medicaid-related damages to the State,' Agency for Health Care Administration General Counsel Andrew Sheeran wrote to lawmakers on Tuesday. That meant that Centene could be directed to divert the remaining $10 million to the Hope Florida charity, Sheeran wrote. The charity was created by DeSantis' administration to support the first lady's Hope Florida initiative, which aims to get Floridians off government assistance, including Medicaid. 'It totally debunks the bogus media narratives that were out there,' DeSantis said Thursday of the agency's letter. But Medicaid experts questioned the logic in Sheeran's memo and said all the money should be owed to the state and federal taxpayers. It also appeared to be at odds with a move by the DeSantis administration to reimburse the federal government based on the full $67 million amount. All of it is taxpayer money, according to Scott Newton, a former FBI agent and federal prosecutor with decades of experience investigating, prosecuting and defending health care fraud. 'The character, the very identity of the program's funding never changes,' Newton said. 'It is and remains the taxpayers' money.' House Republicans have questioned the legality of the state's $67 million settlement with Centene, reached in October after three years of negotiations. Florida was among more than 20 states to settle with the company, which was found to have overbilled Medicaid systems for prescription drugs. Unlike nearly every other state, Florida kept the settlement secret until Republican lawmakers began asking this month about the source of Hope Florida Foundation's $10 million donation. Sheeran wrote to lawmakers that the transaction was neither 'illegal' nor 'illicit,' as some lawmakers have alleged. He also said the $10 million 'was not comprised of Medicaid funds.' As evidence, Sheeran gave lawmakers a four-page letter labeled 'confidential' by Centene from 2023 showing how the company arrived at $67 million. The company used the total number of prescriptions and a percentage of how much Florida taxpayers spent on them between 2017 and 2018 to calculate that it owed $56.2 million for overcharges. Also included in the calculation was an additional $10.8 million for 'any other potentially alleged damages' related to overbilling and to incentivize states to settle 'without doing formalized claims audits that would cause further delay and cost to the parties.' In other words, the additional $10.8 million was a margin of error for Centene's calculations — and an incentive for Florida not to do its own analysis to see if the company was accurate. It was also the baseline for Medicaid damages. Every state that settled received a minimum of $10.8 million, Centene wrote. But Sheeran, in his memo, wrote that the $10.8 million 'was not to compensate the State for loss of Medicaid funds.' He said that meant the $10 million donation by Centene that came from that portion was 'not Medicaid funds.' It's unclear if the state ever completed its own audit of Centene's overbilling to get a better understanding of what it was owed. The state never answered the Times/Herald's questions about it. The final settlement was identical to what lawyers working with Centene first proposed paying in restitution in February 2022: $67,048,611. DeSantis has said the $10 million was a 'cherry on top' of the $57 million. 'The agreement they reached with the company was for $56 million to recoup for this … Medicaid thing,' DeSantis said Wednesday. 'It's there, it's documented, and then they got a 10 million private donation on top of that.' Under federal rules, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is owed its share of the Centene settlement. For Florida during this period, that would mean 57% was owed back to the feds. That calculation must be based on the entirety of the settlement, according to federal guidance. 'It's not clear to me why the entire $67 million settlement amount isn't owed to the state's Medicaid program,' said Andy Schneider, a research professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy who has over 50 years of experience with the Medicaid program. 'If that's the case, the federal government would be entitled to 57 percent of the amount.' Florida seems to acknowledge that the entire settlement is for $67 million, according to Rep. Alex Andrade, the Pensacola Republican who has been investigating the Hope Florida Foundation. He said Florida's accounting ledger shows that the state is setting aside $38.3 million — which is 57% of $67 million. 'Given AHCA's own internal disagreement about what is and is not Medicaid money, I'm certainly concerned about their competence over there,' Andrade said in a statement. Other states do not appear to have added clauses like Florida's donation to the Hope Florida Foundation into their settlements with Centene. Massachusetts returned its portion of its $14 million settlement with Centene to its state Medicaid program. Washington returned its portion of its $33 million settlement to its Medicaid Fraud Penalty Account. California said its share of its $215 million settlement went to its False Claims Act Fund and the state Department of Health Care Services. Not addressed in Sheeran's memo is what the Hope Florida Foundation did with the $10 million. It awarded it to two nonprofits. Those nonprofits later gave $8.5 million to a political committee controlled by DeSantis' then-chief of staff.
Miami Herald
25-04-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
DeSantis says Hope Florida didn't get Medicaid money. Experts question state's logic
Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration this week released its most detailed explanation to date on its legal reasoning behind diverting $10 million in Medicaid settlement money to the Hope Florida Foundation. In short, only $57 million of a $67 million legal settlement Florida made with the Medicaid contractor Centene was considered 'potential Medicaid-related damages to the State,' Agency for Health Care Administration General Counsel Andrew Sheeran wrote to lawmakers on Tuesday. That meant that Centene could be directed to divert the remaining $10 million to the Hope Florida charity, Sheeran wrote. The charity was created by DeSantis' administration to support the first lady's Hope Florida initiative, which aims to get Floridians off government assistance, including Medicaid. 'It totally debunks the bogus media narratives that were out there,' DeSantis said Thursday of the agency's letter. But Medicaid experts questioned the logic in Sheeran's memo and said all the money should be owed to the state and federal taxpayers. It also appeared to be at odds with a move by the DeSantis administration to reimburse the federal government based on the full $67 million amount. All of it is taxpayer money, according to Scott Newton, a former FBI agent and federal prosecutor with decades of experience investigating, prosecuting and defending health care fraud. 'The character, the very identity of the program's funding never changes,' Newton said. 'It is and remains the taxpayers' money.' House Republicans have questioned the legality of the state's $67 million settlement with Centene, reached in October after three years of negotiations. Florida was among more than 20 states to settle with the company, which was found to have overbilled Medicaid systems for prescription drugs. Unlike nearly every other state, Florida kept the settlement secret until Republican lawmakers began asking this month about the source of Hope Florida Foundation's $10 million donation. Not Medicaid funds? Sheeran wrote to lawmakers that the transaction was neither 'illegal' nor 'illicit,' as some lawmakers have alleged. He also said the $10 million 'was not comprised of Medicaid funds.' As evidence, Sheeran gave lawmakers a four-page letter labeled 'confidential' by Centene from 2023 showing how the company arrived at $67 million. The company used the total number of prescriptions and a percentage of how much Florida taxpayers spent on them between 2017 and 2018 to calculate that it owed $56.2 million for overcharges. Also included in the calculation was an additional $10.8 million for 'any other potentially alleged damages' related to overbilling and to incentivize states to settle 'without doing formalized claims audits that would cause further delay and cost to the parties.' In other words, the additional $10.8 million was a margin of error for Centene's calculations — and an incentive for Florida not to do its own analysis to see if the company was accurate. It was also the baseline for Medicaid damages. Every state that settled received a minimum of $10.8 million, Centene wrote. But Sheeran, in his memo, wrote that the $10.8 million 'was not to compensate the State for loss of Medicaid funds.' He said that meant the $10 million donation by Centene that came from that portion was 'not Medicaid funds.' It's unclear if the state ever completed its own audit of Centene's overbilling to get a better understanding of what it was owed. The state never answered the Herald/Times' questions about it. The final settlement was identical to what lawyers working with Centene first proposed paying in restitution in February 2022: $67,048,611. DeSantis has said the $10 million was a 'cherry on top' of the $57 million.'The agreement they reached with the company was for $56 million to recoup for this … Medicaid thing,' DeSantis said Wednesday. 'It's there, it's documented, and then they got a 10 million private donation on top of that.' Repaying the federal government Under federal rules, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is owed its share of the Centene settlement. For Florida during this period, that would mean 57% was owed back to the feds. That calculation must be based on the entirety of the settlement, according to federal guidance. 'It's not clear to me why the entire $67 million settlement amount isn't owed to the state's Medicaid program,' Andy Schneider, a research professor at Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy who has over 50 years of experience with the Medicaid program. 'If that's the case, the federal government would be entitled to 57 percent of the amount.' Florida seems to acknowledge that the entire settlement is for $67 million, according to Rep. Alex Andrade, the Pensacola Republican who has been investigating the Hope Florida Foundation. He said Florida's accounting ledger shows that the state is setting aside $38.3 million — which is 57% of $67 million. 'Given AHCA's own internal disagreement about what is and is not Medicaid money, I'm certainly concerned about their competence over there,' Andrade said in a statement. Other states do not appear to have added clauses like Florida's donation to the Hope Florida Foundation into their settlements with Centene. Massachusetts returned its portion of its $14 million settlement with Centene to its state Medicaid program. Washington returned its portion of its $33 million settlement to its Medicaid Fraud Penalty Account. California said its share of its $215 million settlement went to its False Claims Act Fund and the state Department of Health Care Services. Not addressed in Sheeran's memo is what the Hope Florida Foundation did with the $10 million. It awarded it to two nonprofits. Those nonprofits later gave $8.5 million to a political committee controlled by DeSantis' then-chief of staff.
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Least productive' House ever? That's what the governor says
Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at Indian River College in Fort Pierce on April 23, 2025. (Screenshot via the governor's X livestream) With just nine days left in the 2025 legislative session, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday upped his criticism of the Florida House of Representatives and continued to defend First Lady Casey DeSantis and her flagship Hope Florida Foundation amid growing controversy. DeSantis spent the first half of a news conference he called in Fort Pierce extolling the state's economy during his governorship and repeated recent complaints about the House, which has sparred with the governor on matters including Highway Patrol funding, Everglades restoration funding, university presidential searches, and access to the courts — all coming after dueling special sessions in January and February on immigration laws. 'They are the least productive Florida House of Representatives that we have seen in modern Florida history, and I can tell you they are the least productive since I've been governor by a country mile. I mean it's not even close in terms of what they're doing,' DeSantis said. He hammered away against the House for its proposal to reduce the state sales tax rather than property taxes, as the governor would prefer. DeSantis said the sales tax plan would benefit tourists, even though data show most sales taxes are paid by Florida residents. DeSantis made the remarks at Indian River College, where he announced a round of aviation- and manufacturing-related infrastructure grants. They are the least productive Florida House of Representatives that we have seen in modern Florida history, and I can tell you they are the least productive since I've been governor by a country mile. I mean it's not even close in terms of what they're doing. – Gov. Ron DeSantis House Speaker Daniel Perez has dismissed DeSantis's displeasure, saying he is 'emotional.' Each insists he is more conservative than the other. DeSantis used the opportunity to play down the Hope Florida Foundation controversy, reiterating his assertion that it's nothing more than a political attack against his wife and her initiative. 'I think a lot of people are threatened by the success of the program. It upends some of their ideological commitments. It shows that she's actually made a difference. I know there's people that are threatened by that, so I think the Hope Florida program has been something that's been a tremendous success for the state.' Health care giant Centene 'donated' $10 million to the foundation as part of a $67 million Medicaid settlement involving pharmacy cost overpayments. The governor denied the money was Medicaid-related but documents obtained by the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times suggest otherwise. The DeSantis administration has tried to explain the money in a letter to House Health Care Budget Committee chair Alex Andrade, who has been leading the investigation into the donation. Two of the governor's top health care secretaries aligned with the Hope Florida program, with the foundation supports, won't be confirmed by the Senate this session. Christine Sexton contributed to this report. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
