Arizona first state to ask for medicaid waiver

January 26th, 2011 - 11:27 pm ICT by Aishwarya Bhatt  

Washington DC, Jan 26 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Arizona became the first state in the United States to ask for Medicaid waiver.

On Tuesday, the state made a request to the federal state in a 19-page document that the state should be excused from taking care of the Medicaid of some hundreds of thousands of citizens in the state. The move, as is explained in the document is meant to reduce the huge budget deficit that the state is struggling to deal with.

The state’s governor, Jan Brewer indicated that she the state is currently facing a budget deficit of more that $760 million in the current fiscal year and they project that the state will be dealing with $1.15 million budget deficit in 2012.

The governor called on the federal government to give the state the “flexibility” that the state needs to get out of its difficult financial situation.

Gov. Brewer said that, “I am very optimistic that the federal government will step up…can’t imagine..[the federal government]completely shut the door on us.”

Brewer does not have a contingency plan, should the proposal be denied. If the proposal is accepted, about 280,000 recipients of Medicaid and Medicare will be affected.

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