SALTER - Some Dem and GOP Govs agree Health care bill would burden states too much

Across the nation and across party lines, the nation's governors have been scrambling to determine whether their state budgets can absorb the state match portions of a huge influx of new Medicaid beneficiaries during the current national economic recession.

In New York, Gov. Paterson has bucked his own party by complaining that Democratic health reform legislation taking shape in Congress might be particularly punitive to state's with "generous" Medicaid programs that provide services to recipients beyond minimum federal mandates. The Paterson administration has warned that the Democratic health care reforms might drive up state budget deficits as well.

Paterson's misgivings are being echoed by governors across the country in both the Republican and Democratic parties as state executives learn that the proposed legislation will require states to pay part of the cost of a broad expansion of Medicaid.

But the bottom line is that by 2019, New York state taxpayers would likely pay about 18 percent of the Medicaid costs for new enrollees.

Barbour expressed some of the same sentiments to U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran in a Sept. 8 letter:

" In Mississippi, the issue of Medicaid expansion hits close to home, since our state's share of the Medicaid program is currently $707 million, or 12 percent of a $5.87 billion state-supported budget, which includes temporary stimulus funds," Barbour wrote to Cochran.

Read more by Sid Salter at The Clarion-Ledger
10/28/9