Judd Gregg: “I will yield myself time off that of the Senator from Iowa, and I would simply say that I think the Senator from Iowa…”

“I will yield myself time off that of the Senator from Iowa, and I would simply say that I think the Senator from Iowa has summarized the reasons this proposal should be opposed. I want to reinforce that. We have a formula in place. The whole theory of the formula, especially the one adjusted annually on the basis of census figures, is that there are going to be different States that win and different States that are adjusted downward, and this formula specifically is adjusted based on income. If some States have an increase in the income of their Medicaid population, then clearly they are going to receive less in the area of Medicaid. If other States have people in the Medicaid population whose income goes down, they are going to receive more. But if every year we step forward and those States which happen to have lost money under this formula are going to be held harmless, there would be no point in having a formula and we would end up in basic chaos as we moved into the outyears because of the fact you would have built in so many grandfathered baselines. So the Senator from Iowa is absolutely right. The responsible thing to do here is support the law as it is presently structured. More importantly, the Senator from Iowa is correct in saying that the offsets which are proposed here really are a little illusory. First off, they have been proposed to be used in three other amendments already.…”