William Tauzin: “If I can, I want to go back, cross over from Medicare to Medicaid again. I want to remind you all that something happens…”

“If I can, I want to go back, cross over from Medicare to Medicaid again. I want to remind you all that something happens when you get to Washington that changes you somehow. I hope the freshmen really have a great success in changing the way this place works. When Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas, he understood that government mandates, government command, control, all these strings we tie to these programs simply create inefficiencies, paperwork, fraud, abuse, and all kinds of things. He begged the Congress for several years, ``Please get rid of those mandates, send us the money in a block grant, let us run our program in the State of Arkansas, we'll all be better off.'' Guess what we are proposing? We are proposing to do exactly that, to send Medicaid moneys at a 4.9-percent growth rate per year for 7 years. We are planning on sending that to the Stats just as Bill Clinton pled with us to do, without all the strings, with the simple requirement that the plans they submit to carry it out have the same protections for seniors and for poor people that the current Medicaid system does. So what are we doing? We are proposing to do what Bill Clinton wanted to do as Governor. Why on Earth is he opposing it as a President now? Did something happen? Did he drink some water here in the Potomac that changed his mind? I do not know, I do know this.…”