A judge says he is holding off on a request by hospitals to stop Governor's Haley Barbour's latest Medicaid funding plan.

Hinds County Chancery Judge William Singletary said Wednesday that the plan would need to get federal approval and go into effect before he could consider blocking it.

Several hospitals filed a lawsuit to try to stop Barbour's plan to tax hospitals to generate money for Mississippi's struggling Medicaid program. Medicaid needs another $90 million to get through next June.

Hospital attorneys argued that the governor's new plan is the same one Singletary had already ruled against, just "dressed up a little bit and the name changed."

Singletary ruled in July that Medicaid didn't have the authority to set taxes or fees that hospitals must pay. He said only the state legislature has that power.