By NICOLE CARTRETTE
Staff Writer

“There is nothing we can do on a local level.”|

That is what Kathryn Foley told the Columbus County Board of Commissioners recently and asked that the Medicaid Advisory Committee created last fall be dissolved.

“The county cannot provide or decide services,” Foley, a former Social Services employee, and member of the committee told the board. “We can’t be effective – there’s nothing we can really do.”

Foley explained that the committee had met with state Medicaid officials in May and determined on a local level Medicaid costs can’t be controlled.

Social Services administration does a good job, Foley said. “It’s a thankless job. I know; I worked in it for 30 years,” she explained.

“She’s saying the exact truth,” Commissioner James Prevatte said.

He and commissioner Ronald Gore had attended the special presentation in May.

“Some receive services they are not eligible for but one day they will have to pay for it,” Foley told commissioners.

Commissioner Bill Memory then made a motion to do away with the advisory committee, comprised of nurses, health directors, a social service representative, a farmer and others.
Commissioner Amon McKenzie seconded the motion that carried by unanimous vote of the board.

Reducing services covered, eligibility categories, and rates paid to providers are three areas for impacting the overall Medicaid budget, Jefferey Simms, Assistant Director for Managed Care for the N.C. Division of Medical Assistance told the advisory committee in May.

The authority to change those factors, however, does not lie with local officials but the state, he explained.

Medicaid is a health program for eligible needy and low income persons created by the federal government in 1965 as a joint effort with the states.

North Carolina’s program was created in January of 1970.

Each state, under federal guidelines, sets its own eligibility standards, type, duration, amount and scope of services, establishes the fee paid to providers and administers its own program.

While families and children represent 69 percent of all recipients they make up only 31 percent of total services expenditures.

Elderly and disabled recipients – at just 30 percent – represent 69 percent of total expenditures.

In Columbus County more than 32 percent of the population – 17,906 people are eligible for Medicaid.

Total Columbus County Medicaid expenditures (including federal, state, and local match) exceeded $95 million in 2006, according to Simms.

The county’s share was $5.4 million.