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The chairman of the House Aging and Long-term Care Committee said Thursday that he is close to introducing two bills for restoring part of the recent cuts in Medicaid reimbursement rates.

“It looks like one of them will be ready to go yet this week,” said Rep. Bob Bethell, R-Alden. “The other one should be ready next week sometime.”

Both bills would call for using a provider tax to generate state funds to leverage more matching federal Medicaid dollars.

One of the bills, Bethell said, would focus on nursing homes. The other would target the so-called Medicaid waiver programs for the frail elderly, people with physical and developmental disabilities and those with traumatic brain injuries.

Bethell said he’s not yet sure how much the nursing homes and waiver programs would be taxed or how much federal funding would be generated.

“That analysis – how much tax would be needed to generate the federal dollars we’re looking for – has been requested,” he said. “It’s coming.”

Both bills, Bethell said, would include provisions for a 60 percent reduction in the taxes after three years and a ‘sunset’ or complete repeal after four years.

“This is meant to be a stop-gap measure,” he said. “My intent is to restore as much of what we lost in the Medicaid cuts as possible for these groups.”

Bethell said he hoped that after three years, the state’s revenue picture will have improved enough to allow the taxes to be phased out.

The bills, he said, would keep the revenue generated by the taxes and the increase in Medicaid funding separate from the State General Fund.

“All of what’s raised is to go back to the nursing homes and to the waiver program,” he said.

In the past, the state’s nonprofit nursing homes have argued against using a provider tax to generate additional revenue, saying they would be forced to raise rates for their private-pay residents.

“We are opposed to a provider tax,” said Deborah Zehr, executive director at the Kansas Association of Homes and Services for the Aging.

“We believe that the state has an obligation to adequately fund quality services at a level that allows providers to meet regulatory standards,” Zehr said. “What a provider tax does is shift that responsibility onto the providers.”

“Hey, I don’t like this any more than they do,” Bethell said, referring to KAHSA. “My problem is that I’ve been looking for a solution to this ever since the Medicaid cuts were announced in November, and I honestly don’t see any other alternative. I wish I did, but I don’t. And I can tell you right now, there’s no stomach (in the House) for a (general) tax increase.”

In November, Gov. Mark Parkinson imposed a 10 percent cut in Medicaid reimbursements, a move expected to save the $22 million in the second half of the current fiscal year.

The reduction, he said, was needed to offset revenue shortfalls.

If not restored, the cut would total $77 million in fiscal year 2011, triggering the loss of approximately $140 million in federal matching funds.

The Kansas Department on Aging working with the Kansas Health Policy Authority drafted a report analyzing the benefits and costs of a nursing home provider tax, but the health policy authority hasn't officially approved or endorsed the document.