Susan Collins: “I am pleased to have a number of cosponsors, including Senators Rockefeller, Ben Nelson, Smith, Schumer, Coleman…”

“I am pleased to have a number of cosponsors, including Senators Rockefeller, Ben Nelson, Smith, Schumer, Coleman, Clinton, Murray, and Wyden. But I particularly want to pay tribute to Senator Ben Nelson and Senator Rockefeller, who have worked night and day with not only Senator Grassley and myself but others interested in this issue to forge a compromise that I think will result, at the end of the day, in the conference report with $20 billion in much needed fiscal relief for our States. Half of this funding would be through a temporary increase in the Federal Medicaid share, to ensure that States can continue to protect millions of vulnerable Americans who rely on the Medicaid program as part of the health care safety net. The attacks of September 11, coupled with the subsequent recession and resulting unemployment, have placed tremendous and unanticipated strains on State budgets.”