MARQUETTE, Mich. (WLUC) – On Tuesday, the Marquette County Board heard concerns over the state\u2019s plan to privatize prepaid inpatient health plans, also known as PIHPs.<\/p>\n
The board heard privileged comment from Pathways CEO Matt Maskart regarding the plan. Under the plan, the state will seek proposals from private entities to serve as the state\u2019s PIHP.<\/p>\n
PIHPs manage Medicaid-funded specialty behavioral health and developmental disability services for those eligible–specifically for those with mental illness or substance use disorders.<\/p>\n
The state\u2019s Department of Health and Human Services says the move will create a more accessible and person-centered system of care. Those opposed say there are major concerns with the state\u2019s proposed plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are three main concerns for both community mental health providers as well as the county,\u201d said Matt Maskart, Pathways Community Mental Health CEO. \u201cThey are loss of local governance, risk to the public safety net and then, like everything, there\u2019s always a financial component to that as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maskart says due to an increase in private entities\u2019 overhead administration costs, this plan could result in a $500 million cut to mental health care funding.<\/p>\n
The board requested an update from other U.P. counties on their stance before they entertain any resolution in opposition to the state\u2019s plan to change the current system.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 WLUC. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MARQUETTE, Mich. (WLUC) – On Tuesday, the Marquette County Board heard concerns over the state\u2019s plan to privatize…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":199937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[36731,1258,210,110732,2775,110729,110730,110733,517,4166,36274,110731,110734,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-199936","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-department-of-health-and-human-services","9":"tag-funding","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-local-control","12":"tag-marquette","13":"tag-marquette-county","14":"tag-marquette-county-board","15":"tag-mdhhs","16":"tag-mental-health","17":"tag-mental-illness","18":"tag-pathways","19":"tag-pathways-community-mental-health","20":"tag-substance-use-disorder","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115146876760619421","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}