Political Quotes

“I introduce today a bill to revise the formula for determining the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage. Medicaid services and associated administrative costs are financed jointly by the Federal government and the States. The formula for the Federal share of a State's payments for services, known as the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP), was established when Medicaid was created as part of the Social Security Amendments of 1965. The FMAP is a somewhat exotic creature, derived from the Hill-Burton Hospital Survey and Construction Act of 1946, specifically designed to provide a higher Federal matching rate for states with lower state funds, as measured by per capital income. A Senate colleague once described it to me as the South's revenge for the Civil War. The Federal government's share depends upon the square of the ratio of state per capita income to national per capita income. Per capita income is a proxy but not the only proxy for measuring the States' relative fiscal capacity and its population's need for assistance.”