Feds to unplug medical subsidy

[question everything]

Source: Minneapolis StarTribune

By KEVIN DIAZ, Star Tribune

September 11, 2008

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration plans to drop Medicaid coverage for 18,000 low-income parents in Minnesota, a move that has stunned state officials who say they didn't see it coming. The decision, buried in a 29-page document outlining federal changes affecting the state's subsidized health program, known as MinnesotaCare, has prompted written protests from all 10 members of Minnesota's congressional delegation, along with two emergency bills to head off the cuts, which could total $135 million over three years. On Wednesday, state officials were given two more weeks to make their case that the cut-off is unwarranted and could increase state costs and the ranks of the uninsured.

Most of those affected are parents of children who have been enrolled in the state children's health insurance program (known as SCHIP), the focal point of a heated political fight with the White House, which vetoed two separate Democratic proposals to expand the program last year.

One of the sticking points: The Bush administration's opposition to covering parents with children's health program funds, a practice used by Minnesota and a half-dozen other states that have their own programs for children's health coverage.

(snip)

Minnesota officials say they have long relied on federal Medicaid dollars to expand the reach of MinnesotaCare, which has about 117,000 enrollees across the state, about 30,000 of them the adult parents of children who get subsidized health care.





Read more: http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/28223014.html

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Now... why did neither Coleman nor Pawlenty address this during the convention?

Yeah, right.