Governors from across the country pleaded Wednesday for Congress to pass legislation extending special funding for Medicaid programs, arguing state budgets would suffer without them.
Not getting the money would mean Colorado would have to cut an additional $211 million from the general fund in the 2010-11 fiscal year. That would likely prompt further cuts to public-school funding, colleges and other programs, said Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat.
“I worry about money, and I worry about the country’s long-term deficit as much as anyone,” Ritter said. “But we need balance.”
Ritter was among the 10 governors who spoke with reporters in a nationwide teleconference, which included two Republicans.
The proposal in Congress would extend an enhanced Federal Medicaid Assistance Percentage for Medicaid funding to the states. Prior to the recession, the federal government picked up 50 percent of the cost of Colorado’s Medicaid program, but stimulus funding has increased the federal match, or the FMAP, to 61.59 percent.
That increased match is set to run out Dec. 31, but proposals in Congress would extend it another six months, through the end of states’ fiscal years in June 2011.
At least 29 states built the enhanced match into their 2010-11 budgets that start in July, an action governors said was reasonable given the fact that both chambers of Congress had supported the extension at times and the White House had pledged support for it.
But a recent attempt to muster 60 votes for the proposal in the Senate failed, and some fear the FMAP extension may be dead, as a number of members of Congress balk at the $24 billion price tag.
Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California said failing to approve the extension would cause California to make an additional $18 billion in cuts. “The importance of this extension cannot be overstated,” he said.
