The Massachusetts Senate today sought to define the process through which the Baker Administration might require employers pay for a shortfall in the MassHealth program.

The proposed Fiscal Year 2018 budget released by the Senate Ways & Means Committee gives the administration a choice of increasing the Employer Medical Assistance Contribution (EMAC) or creating a stand-alone quarterly assessment on employers.

The Senate envisions raising $180 million from such assessments versus the $300 million contained in the governor’s budget. Senators would also limit the life of those assessments to two years.

The approach of creating a roadmap for the administration is similar to the one adopted earlier by the House of Representatives, through the specifics of each proposal differ.

“The Senate Ways & Means Committee took a step in the right direction today by outlining a thoughtful and transparent approach to closing the Medicaid budget deficit. Employers are particularly encouraged that the committee’s budget proposal would raise $180 million from employers instead of $300 million; would provide the Baker Administration with the flexibility to find a solution; and would sunset any employer assessments,” said Richard C. Lord, President and Chief Executive Officer of Associated Industries of Massachusetts.

“The Senate plan again reminds us that the only long-term solution to the Medicaid funding issue is to redouble efforts to control the cost of providing health insurance to our low-income neighbors. Without such an effort, the Medicaid budget gap will continue to grow and divert precious resources from other priorities such as education and infrastructure.”

Lord also urged the Senate to add a provision that would require the Baker Administration to seek a federal waiver allowing Massachusetts to prevent people who receive an offer of health insurance from their employers from purchasing insurance through MassHealth.

The Senate proposal would require Secretary of Administration and Finance Kristen Lepore to file a letter with the Legislature by August 1 indicating whether she will choose the EMAC or assessment option. Regulations must be published by November 1 and take effect January 1 of next year.

Secretary Lepore could either increase the employer assessment for EMAC, an obscure program originally meant to provide health insurance to unemployed people, from .34 percent to .75 percent, or establish a separate employer assessment based upon whether or not an employer offers qualified health insurance and has a minimum uptake rate for that insurance.

The secretary would have  to consider the following in developing any assessment:

1. how much the employer pays toward the employee’s insurance;
2. how many employees they have;
3. whether or not their employees are Massachusetts residents;
4. how many employees are part-time
5. whether or not their employees have access to health insurance through different private sources, like parental, spousal, veteran’s, or Medicare, for example.

Governor Baker originally proposed a $2,000-per-employee assessment upon companies at which at least 80 percent of full-time worker equivalents do not take the company’s offer of health insurance, and that do not make a minimum contribution of $4,950 annual contribution for each full-time worker. If 70 percent of a company’s employees accept company health insurance, the company would be assessed $2,000 per employee for the number of employees represented by the 10 percent difference.

AIM has opposed the employer assessment because the growing shortfall at MassHealth, which provides health insurance to 1.9 million low-income Massachusetts residents, is attributable largely to problems arising from the federal health care reform. Federal reform made access to health insurance an entitlement based on expanded income eligibility and significantly expanded the roles of people on Medicaid.

The full Senate will vote on the Medicaid assessment proposal and the rest of its Fiscal Year 2018 budget blueprint later this week. House and Senate will then meet to work out differences.