PHOENIX (AP) — An appeals court on Tuesday refused to block a major cost-cutting reduction of Arizona's Medicaid program, leaving intact an enrollment freeze projected to result in over 100,000 fewer sign-ups of low-income adults without children.
A judge had ruled against a challenge to the freeze implemented by the state's Medicaid program, known as the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System. The Court of Appeals panel rejected an appeal of that ruling.
Challengers had argued that the freeze violates a voter-approved 2000 law increasing eligibility in the Medicaid program. The law had also required the Legislature to pay for the increase by using "any other available" money to supplement dollars from tobacco industry payments.
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The Legislature for years used money from the general fund when the tobacco money ran short. But Brewer and the Republican-led Legislature last spring said no additional money was available because of the state's fiscal crisis, and they cut program funding when they drew up the current state budget.
The freeze was projected to save the state a projected $190 million in the current fiscal year, which was more than a third of the $500 million projected savings from program changes being implemented by Gov. Jan Brewer's administration. The budget cuts have been approved by the Legislature.
The Court of Appeals' ruling agreed with the plaintiffs that state constitutional protections for the voter-approved eligibility expansion means the Legislature must provide additional funding. However, the panel said courts can't determine whether the state has other money available to maintain the program's eligibility levels and that it was up to the legislators to perform that political function.
Without set standards on whether the Legislature has truly used "available" money, "we are ill-equipped to inquire into and second-guess the complexities of decision-making and priority-setting that go into managing the state's budget and the appropriations made pursuant to budget decisions," Judge Patricia K. Norris wrote for the three-judge panel.
Tim Hogan, an Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest attorney representing the challengers, said they will ask the Arizona Supreme Court to quickly review the Court of Appeals ruling.
"That's a meaningless right for people if that's the case," he said of the ruling. "This initiative was specific about prohibiting (enrollment) caps and requiring that everybody below the federal poverty line would require health benefits."
The line drawn by the ruling "doesn't mean much in the real world," Hogan added.
Brewer applauded the ruling, saying it took into account that avoiding the Medicaid cutbacks would have resulted in devastating cuts for services such as schools and public safety.
"Elected officials are charged with making tough choices, and our actions to reform Medicaid are exactly that," she said.
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