Republican group seeks to scrap proposed $20 billion Medicaid cut (KRN)

[Up2Late]

(This could be the beginning of the end of Lock Step Repukes!)

Posted on Thu, Apr. 14, 2005

Republican group seeks to scrap proposed $20 billion Medicaid cut

By Tony Pugh

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - In the latest blow to White House proposals to cut the federal budget deficit in half by 2009, 44 moderate Republicans have asked the chairman of the House of Representatives Budget Committee to reject $20 billion in proposed cuts to Medicaid, the embattled national health plan for the poor, elderly and disabled.

Instead of the deep cuts called for in the House's 2006 budget resolution, the lawmakers, led by Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., want to create a bipartisan commission to recommend reforms to the program. The Senate passed a similar request in a budget resolution March 17. It is unclear whether Wilson's proposal, outlined in an April 13 letter to Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, will succeed.

But Wilson's push to retain Medicaid funding reflects a growing division within the GOP on how to address the program's ever-expanding annual price tag, which is expected to exceed $316 billion in fiscal 2005. Of that, the federal government will pay $182 billion and states will pay $134.5 billion, according to program actuaries. The Bush administration argues that states can trim Medicaid spending by $60 billion over 10 years by cutting program fraud, waste and abuse.

Although state officials are less optimistic, Medicaid has been plagued by these problems, much like some other big federal programs. Government investigators say Medicaid providers bilk millions from the program each year for unnecessary services - those that are never performed and some that the program isn't supposed to cover.

(more at link above)