Measure by Sen. Rockefeller Would Boost Federal Medicaid Payments by 1.5%

Hoping to offset tax revenue losses that states will suffer as a result of the recently enacted economic stimulus bill, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) has proposed legislation that would boost Medicaid reimbursement rates to states by 1.5% through September 2004, the Charleston Daily Mail reports (Fischer, Charleston Daily Mail, 3/20). The National Governors Association estimates that tax break provisions in the stimulus bill, signed into law earlier this month, will cost states as much as $14.7 billion over the next three years. This revenue loss could lead many already cash-strapped states to scale back their Medicaid programs (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 3/13). In addition to the 1.5% across-the-board increase, Rockefeller's bill would make states with high unemployment rates eligible for an additional reimbursement rate increase over the same three-year period. Rockefeller is hoping to attach the measure, which would cost the federal government an estimated $17 billion, to the energy bill currently being debated in the Senate. "We should not have passed a stimulus bill without assistance to the states included. When they need it most ... we are forcing states to cut this critical health care program," he said (Charleston Daily Mail, 3/20).