Political Quotes

“just a few short weeks ago, Congress and the President of the United States agreed to provide $48 billion over the course of the next 10 years as an incentive to States to provide health care coverage to uninsured, low-income children. To receive this incentive, States must expand eligibility levels to children living in families whose incomes are up to 200 percent of the Federal poverty level. Mr. President, this provided a real anomaly, a true injustice, with respect to the State of Washington, and to varying extents to the States of Hawaii, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Vermont as well. In the case of each of these States, though I must speak most specifically to my own, State legislatures had already expanded the eligibility for Medicare to children in families with incomes up to roughly 200 percent of the poverty level. Most of the other States, the States that were designed to be incentivized, have mandatory levels of 100 to 133 percent of the poverty level in incomes and, therefore, in many cases would get these incentives for a very significant expansion of Medicare eligible children for these Kidcare programs. The net result, however, was that for States like the State of Washington, the fact that they had been more generous, more progressive, more liberal, whatever one wishes to call it on their own, resulted in a dramatic penalty. Our taxpayers, of course, will contribute to this expansion.”