Tulsa World editorial: Federal reversal on physician training deepens state budget crisis

At the worst possible moment, federal Medicaid bureaucrats are refusing to help fund physician training in Oklahoma, deepening the state’s budget crisis. For years, Oklahoma has sent its appropriations for training doctors at OU and OSU through the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, thus magnifying the funding with federal Medicaid money. But in 2015, federal officials found that the waiver authorizing that use of matching funds hadn’t been renewed since 2001, although they had never stopped making the payments. Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rejected state plans to continue the funding, meaning the state would have to come up with $31 million to pay for the program for the rest of this year and $115 million for every year thereafter. http://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/editorials/tulsa-world-editorial-federal-reversal-on-physician-training-deepens-state/article_ea3c9a10-c6bd-5ce6-be61-8f7c0bb5ab1d.html