Medicaid : for the states

CQ Reports

The Bush administration is poised to issue a slew of new Medicaid rules that would shift billions of dollars in costs for the program to the states — and there may be little that the financially strapped states or their congressional patrons can do about it.

States and the federal government share Medicaid costs. About 57 percent of the program’s costs are covered by federal dollars, which is an estimated $204 billion in fiscal 2008.

so what changed?

Bush administration officials, backed by studies by the Government Accountability Office, have complained that states have used schemes of questionable legality to collect more federal payments than they deserve.

Many Senators including Olympia Snowe (R-MD) and Max Baucus (D-MT) are against such legislation and will block these efforts, partly because of the strain this creates on states already dwindling resources.