On the recordAugust 1, 2002
I know my State would be out of a lot of money. We offered a drug benefit that goes up to 74 percent of poverty, and we are going to put a new mandate between 74 and 150 percent of poverty. The State has to make that match. I know it is going to cost my State millions. HHS said it cost $68 million. They said the cost for the first year is over $5 billion. We did find his amendment greatly increases Medicaid costs for a lot of States. Yes, we exposed that. That happens to be factual. This was not just a Medicare expansion. It was a Medicaid expansion, and the States have to match Medicaid. Did we find it? Yes. Did we find in the original Graham proposal that the proposal limited the prescription drugs to one, up to two, drugs for therapeutic class? We did. I think it probably is one of the reasons that proposal did not pass--because it is such a limitation.
Source
govinfo.gov
