The law institutes a benchmark rate capping the amount the state allows itself to spend on healthcare, which currently takes up 30 percent of its annual budget. The growth rate of state healthcare spending is currently 6 percent, and lawmakers hope the benchmark will eventually drive that rate to somewhere between 2 and 5 percent.
“Bottom line is: If we don’t do something, the state will go bankrupt because of healthcare,” Delaware Health and Social Services Secretary Kara Odom Walker, MD, told The News Journal.
The state will utilize $10 million in CMS innovation funding to hire personnel with the expertise to create the benchmark. Legislators say it will take three years to implement. State officials will work with payers and providers to try and find ways to cut costs and meet the benchmark.
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