Medicaid Task Force Meets In Frankfort

A new legislative task force charged with finding ways to reduce spiraling Medicaid costs in Kentucky held its inaugural meeting Monday in Frankfort. Senate President Pro Tem Katie Stine, who co-chairs the panel with Rep. Jimmie Lee, says the 12-member group faces a daunting task.“We’ll be hearing from a lot of different people this summer and our job – it is a difficult one – will be to sift through all the information and come up with some recommendations on how we can serve our Medicaid population while remaining good stewards of the tax dollars that the good citizens of this commonwealth entrust to us,” Stine said.Medicaid costs in Kentucky have risen from less than $1 billion in 1990 to over $5 billion. Enrollment has doubled, from almost 400-thousand Kentuckians in 1990, to almost 800-thousand, in a state with roughly four million residents.