Jay Rockefeller: “I fully understand the constraints of the $400 billion, as the chairman of the Finance Committee indicates, and I think…”

“I fully understand the constraints of the $400 billion, as the chairman of the Finance Committee indicates, and I think we all understood that to do a full prescription drug benefit, it was going to take substantially more than that, particularly if one included other matters. But would the Senator not agree that there are really two ways of looking at dual eligibles and their dependence now upon Medicaid which is paid by the States? Up until the fairly recent past, States were doing very well and Medicaid benefits, to some degree, were expanding. I reflected on that as to my State. The other way of looking at it is to look at what is happening to Medicaid now in the States because of the balanced constitutional amendment requirements and because of the fiscal condition of the States, which is getting worse every single day, and the fact that Medicaid is the fastest rising cost in any State government budget, and the fact that the States have complete control over what happens to the Medicaid benefit.”