A projection that the state’s Medicaid budget will balance. Department of Health Services officials have submitted a letter to the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance. The letter, from DHS Secretary Kitty Rhoades, says the agency expects to spend $16.3 billion on Medicaid programs by the time the biennium ends on June 30, the amount that was specified in the bienneial state budget.
Those projections “assume DHS will allocate $22 million in one-time money from payments drug manufacturers have made to the state to settle lawsuits alleging they improperly charged the Medicaid program for medications.”