Linda Gorman, director of the Independence Institute‘s Health Policy Center has written an issue brief on the benefits of replacing federal matching funds with Medicaid block grants. An excerpt:

If Medicaid were turned into a block grant program in which the federal government gave each state a set amount of money, it could improve patient care, restrain the growth in costs, reduce complexity and improve outcomes. Furthermore, block grants could be used to implement consumer-directed reforms that allow Medicaid enrollees to control some of the spending on their care and give them incentives to avoid unnecessary care.

Read the whole brief: Medicaid Block Grants and Consumer-Directed Health Care, National Center for Policy Analysis.