Medicaid program; reductions in payments to the states--Health Care Financing Administration. Interim final rule with comment period.

This rule amends current Medicaid regulations to implement section 2161 of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 (Pub. L 97-35) which imposes reductions in Federal matching payments for fiscal years 1982 through 1984. In the regulations, we describe the conditions and specify minimum criteria under which States may lower the reduction. The conditions are the existence of the qualified hospital cost review program, a specific level of unemployment in a State, and a specific amount of fraud and abuse recoveries by a State or, for fiscal year 1982 only, a combination of fraud and abuse and third party liability recoveries. We intend these regulations to provide guidance as to when the reductions, and offsets against the reductions, will be made and how States can qualify for the offsets. In addition, we have issued a notice of proposed rulemaking elsewhere in this issue of the Federal Register that contains proposed policies concerning recoveries from liable third parties for purposes of implementing section 2161.