Governors resist health care reform

NY Times:

The nation’s governors, Democrats as well as Republicans, voiced deep concern Sunday about the shape of the health care bill emerging from Congress, fearing that the federal government is about to hand them expensive new Medicaid obligations without providing the money to pay for them.

The role of the states in a restructured health care system dominated the National Governors Association’s summer meeting here this weekend — with bipartisan animosity voiced against the Obama administration’s plan during a closed-door luncheon on Saturday and in a private meeting on Sunday afternoon with the secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius.“I think the governors would all agree that what we don’t want from the federal government is unfunded mandates,” said Gov. Jim Douglas of Vermont, a Republican who is the group’s incoming chairman. “We can’t have the Congress impose requirements that we are forced to absorb beyond our capacity to do so.”

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Because the states and the federal government share the cost of Medicaid coverage for low-income people, any increase in eligibility levels, benefits or payments to doctors would impose new costs on the states unless Washington agrees to absorb them entirely. In at least one of several bills circulating in Congress, the states would eventually pick up a share of the new costs, and the governors fear they cannot count on pledges in other bills that they will be held harmless.

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It is possible that the Democrats would try to transfer responsibility for paying for their reforms to others as they struggle to meet Obama's demand that they not raise the deficit while spending a trillion dollars. The governors have reason for concern.