A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT to increase the personal needs allowance for medicAID RECIPIENTS who are INSTITUTIONALIZED.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1.  The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is directed to increase the personal needs allowance from thirty dollars ($30.00) to fifty dollars ($50.00) for individual Medicaid recipients who are institutionalized and from sixty dollars ($60.00) to eighty dollars ($80.00) for married couples who are Medicaid recipients when both spouses are institutionalized. DHHS shall deduct the applicable increased monthly amounts for personal needs from the total monthly income taken into consideration when applying the individual's or couple's income to the cost of institutionalized care. DHHS shall submit to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services any amendments to the NC Medicaid State Plan necessary to implement this section.
SECTION 2.  There is appropriated from the General Fund to the Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Health Benefits, the sum of one million four hundred thousand dollars ($1,400,000) in recurring funds for the 2019‑2020 fiscal year and the sum of two million eight hundred thousand dollars ($2,800,000) in recurring funds for the 2020‑2021 fiscal year to implement the increase in the personal needs allowance required by Section 1 of this act. These funds shall provide a State match for an estimated two million eight hundred forty‑six thousand two hundred eighty‑five dollars ($2,846,285) in recurring federal funds for the 2019‑2020 fiscal year and five million six hundred ninety‑two thousand five hundred seventy dollars ($5,692,570) in recurring federal funds for the 2020‑2021 fiscal year, and those federal funds are appropriated to the Division of Health Benefits to pay for costs associated with the rate increases under Section 1 of this act.
SECTION 3.  This act is effective January 1, 2020.