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Medicaid director warns CNMI cannot expand nursing-home care without consistent local matching funds
Summary
Senate committee hearing heard advocates and agency officials say the Commonwealth lacks the local match needed to unlock federal Medicaid dollars for long-term care; Medicaid director George Cruz called declining local allocations a practical barrier to nursing homes and home- and community-based services.
Senate Standing Committee members heard urgent testimony that the Commonwealth cannot build or sustain new long-term care services without steady local matching funds.
George Cruz, director of the Commonwealth Medicaid Agency, told the committee that Medicaid long-term care services depend on a local match that unlocks federal participation. "For every 17¢ the Commonwealth spends locally, the federal government contributes 83¢," Cruz said, warning that recent decreases in local allocations have reduced the agency’s capacity to expand services and that the agency has been short of its required match in recent years. He said the CMA paid out roughly $127,000,000 in reimbursements last fiscal year and that the commonwealth missed several million dollars in potential…
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