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Text only of letters sent from the Committee on Energy and Commerce Democrats

April 24, 2003 

 

National Governors Association
Medicaid Task Force Member
Hall of States
444 North Capitol Street
Washington, D.C. 20001-1512

Dear Medicaid Task Force Member:

I regret that the floor debate on H.R. 6, the "Energy Policy Act of 2003, " prevented my meeting with the National Governors Association (NGA) Medicaid Task Force members on April 10, 2003. I appreciate your efforts to meet with me during your visit to Washington and look forward to another opportunity to meet with you in the future.

As I said to Governors Rowland, Bush, and Richardson when they appeared before the Committee on Energy and Commerce in February, I stand ready to work with you all to help improve flexibility in the Medicaid program and to provide state fiscal relief. I have made no secret, however, about my grave reservations about proposals to block grant the Medicaid program. A block grant would shift cost and risk to the states. Moreover, block grants become an easy target for Congressional budget cutting, and the decision by the House to attempt to cut $94 million from Medicaid and CHIP in the budget resolution is strong evidence of this. I applaud you for opposing these cuts, but efforts to cut the program will continue in the future, and would only be made legislatively easier were the program a block grant.

The top priority on which we can all work together is getting immediate fiscal relief through an increase in the federal medical assistance percentage -- additional federal dollars to help states pay for the cost of insuring families in Medicaid. There is a good coalition pushing for this, including nursing homes, seniors’ groups, children’s groups, doctors, hospitals, and beneficiary groups. Almost 150 beneficiary and provider organizations have signed letters supporting fiscal relief; a bipartisan group of 129 members of the House cosponsored fiscal relief legislation, and 75 members of the Senate have voted to support such legislation last year. Although the Budget Resolution as passed did not specifically allocate funding for state fiscal relief, it did include a Sense of the Senate, supported by 80 Senators, that $30 billion in fiscal relief should be a part of any economic growth package.

I will keep fighting to provide Medicaid funding in any economic growth package and would appreciate your support. But I urge caution to those who would tie fiscal relief to the federal government assuming the states’ cost of drugs for low income elderly, particularly in the context of the Medicare prescription drug debate. Depending on the policy pursued, such an approach risks both losing the support of the coalition and pushing relief off to a very uncertain future.

I look forward to meeting with the Task Force next time you are in Washington, and on working together to help states provide needed health care for the elderly, the disabled, and families.

Sincerely,


JOHN D. DINGELL
RANKING MEMBER

Prepared by the Committee on Energy and Commerce
2125 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515