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Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, Boston Globe-AARP Bulletin Board June 5, 2002 Jun. 5--Clashing with the budget priorities set out in the House, Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham is releasing a budget plan today that would preserve Medicaid benefits for 30,000 long-term unemployed residents, and pay for additional health care spending by relying heavily on the state's settlement with the big tobacco companies. The Senate Ways and Means budget reverses House-approved cuts to Medicaid benefits and methadone clinics and proposes an additional $10 million for prescription drug coverage for the elderly. Senate leaders would direct a total of about $100 million more toward health care than the House did in the budget it approved last month. Senate leaders also propose spending 80 percent of the $300 million annual settlement with the tobacco companies -- violating a signed agreement reached by Birmingham and House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran last fall to spend no more than 50 percent of that revenue in fiscal 2003. Senate Ways and Means Chairman Mark C. Montigny said that preserving health care commitments made during the boom years of the 1990s is more important to senators than socking money away for future health care uses. "That's how simple the choice was for the Senate," said Montigny, a New Bedford Democrat. "We do our best to keep to an agreement, but the economy and revenues of Massachusetts have imploded since then." The House budget would eliminate health coverage for some 30,000 poor residents who have been unemployed for more than a year. House leaders called it a necessary move, because double-digit Medicaid spending increases are difficult to accommodate when state revenues plummet. Senate leaders have declined to go along, arguing that the state will ultimately pay more through emergency room services if so many people lose health insurance. Their budget calls for a 7 percent spending increase on Medicaid next year -- to $5.7 billion total, or $88 million more than the House would spend on the program. Daniel F. Keenan, vice chairman of the House Insurance Committee, said the Senate estimate may be too low to account for cost increases next year. That's irresponsible, Keenan said, and it underscores the importance of finding a way to cope with spiraling Medicaid costs. "It's a very difficult situation to try to balance the budget without taking a serious look at Medicaid," said Keenan, a Southwick Democrat who helped lead a House task force that examined Medicaid funding options this spring. "We have to come up with a budget that balances." The Senate is scheduled to debate and approve the budget next week, and House and Senate negotiators will then work out their differences before sending the document to Acting Governor Jane Swift. Fiscal 2003 begins July 1, but state leaders have not met that deadline in recent years. Keenan said that House negotiators will resist efforts to spend more tobacco settlement money. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging
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