House Health Care chair tells Appropriations committee ACO bridge funding is top FY26 priority to avert primary-care losses

Representative Alyssa Black, chair of the House Committee on Health Care, told the House Appropriations Committee on March 11 that her committee’s top FY26 budget priorities are aimed at stabilizing primary care and the most fragile parts of the state’s mental‑health and home‑health systems.

“We took testimony on every single one of them,” Black said. “These are not just requests that were mailed to us or emailed to us. We took testimony on every single one of them.” She added, “Our system of healthcare, our system of mental healthcare is in a crisis.”

Nut graf: The Health Care Committee’s package focuses first on one‑time bridge funding to cover the wind‑down of the current ACO (OneCare/Blueprint payments) through the transition to the proposed AHEAD model, plus targeted base increases to federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), home‑health providers and designated mental‑health agencies. Committee members signaled the gap between the ACO ending in 2025 and AHEAD’s planned start in 2027 could leave primary‑care providers, especially independent practices, without critical per‑member payments.

Black said the governor’s recommendation includes an ACO transition payment described in the committee materials as $10,800,000 gross, with roughly $4.48 million in general‑fund support; the committee added further one‑time bridge funding requests aimed at replacing payments…