Porter Goss: “Mr. Chairman, I rise very reluctantly, as the distinguished gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hall] knows, in opposition to his…”

“Mr. Chairman, I rise very reluctantly, as the distinguished gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hall] knows, in opposition to his amendment. I want to go through a scenario that gives me some serious concern. It is difficult to precisely read Mr. Hall's amendment because there is no specific line number in the amendment. It appears the amendment would foreclose the Federal Government's ability to ever cut or impose a cap on a number of low-income programs which are listed in section 255(h) of the Budget Act. In essence, any cut or cap would be by definition a Federal intergovernmental mandate even if the States have the authority to change their financial or programmatic responsibilities. This would trigger the point of order. Now, to get specific and go to one of the programs listed in 255(h), Medicaid, the Hall amendment would define any cut or cap in the Medicaid Program as an unfunded mandate regardless of the fact that the States have the flexibility to change their programs. To demonstrate that this is not good policy in the Medicaid Program, I would like to remind my colleagues about a sad chapter in the Medicaid Program involving provider-specific taxes and disproportionate share payments to hospitals. Because of a change in Medicaid law in 1990, provider-specific taxes help cause an annual growth in Federal Medicaid payments to the tune of $10 billion per year, that is annually, $10 billion per year, every year.”