April 24, 2008 11:53 PM UTC

Musgrave Says Yes to President Bush and No to Colorado on Medicaid

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• by: anacaprana

(We can’t let Bob Schaffer get all the press here – promoted by DavidThi808)

Despite her recent claims of bipartisanship, Marilyn Musgrave voted yesterday with the President and just a sliver of Congressional Republicans to strip needed Medicaid funds from the state of Colorado and the rest of the country.  All 50 of the nation’s governors – Republicans and Democrats – as well as state Medicaid directors and 349 members of the U.S. House of Representatives supported the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008 (HR 5613), which prevents the federal government from shirking its responsibility to contribute to Medicaid funding and instead pass those costs on to the states.

The Bush Administration’s plan, which was agreed to by only 62 Members of Congress, including Musgrave, would have cost the state of Colorado a whopping $787 million in critical health funding over five years. The bill even includes two offsets to ensure that its cost of $1.65 billion is fully paid for, including extending an electronic asset verification demonstration for Medicaid applicants and beneficiaries.

Betsy Markey, Democratic candidate for Congress in Colorado’s 4th district, said today that she would have voted differently.

“The more she claims to have changed, the more Marilyn Musgrave remains the same,” Markey said today.  “Slashing federal funds for Medicaid would not only have a devastating effect on many crucial public health programs, but would also put the state of Colorado in serious financial straits.  It is unconscionable that in these tough economic times anyone would try to shift the burden of funding a federal program like Medicaid to the state of Colorado.”

Tim Pawlenty, the Republican Governor of Minnesota and the chairman of the National Governors Association, pleaded with lawmakers to stop the President and his supporters in Congress from walking away from their federal responsibility to fund Medicaid.  Voting to put a moratorium on the President’s proposal is “critical to avert significant disruptions in coverage for vulnerable populations,” he wrote earlier this month.