On the recordMarch 16, 2010
Arizona is suffering, as are other States, from the economic downturn. We have an unemployment rate now that has more than doubled. In fact, it has gone from 3.6 percent in June of 2007 to 9.2 percent this month. Our State faces a $1.4 billion shortfall in the current fiscal year and a $3.2 billion shortfall for the next fiscal year, despite the fact that the Governor and the State legislature have imposed significant spending reductions. State revenues are down by 34 percent. Notwithstanding this, over 200,000 Arizonans have enrolled in the State's Medicaid Program, known as AHCCCS--which is our Arizona health Care Cost Containment System-- just since the beginning of 2009. That is nearly 20,000 new enrollees every month. The last thing, given these kinds of numbers, Washington should be doing is making the States' economic or fiscal problems even worse. Yet that is exactly what Governor Brewer says the Senate health care bill would do because it would require every State to expand its Medicaid Program. The Federal Government would foot the bill for 3 years. Then the States would have to help finance the expansion in 2017 and in subsequent years. She estimates the bill would increase the cost in Arizona by nearly $4 billion over the next 10 years.
