Politicians, Not Mathematicians
April 10th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
The state agreed to a $700 million settlement Monday in a 14-year-long lawsuit alleging that the state didn’t provide sufficient care for children enrolled in Medicaid. The settlement means that Medicaid doctors and dentists will receive greater reimbursements, and outreach to needy families will be improved.
In order to pay for the settlement, the Senate Finance Committee approved an amendment to the budget today that will institute an across-the-board 0.59 percent reduction in all general revenue appropriations. Because the Senate budget was already being printed, the committee voted not to reprint. Rather, a summary of the changes will be included in the version given to Senators when the budget is discussed on the Senate floor.
A few Senators were concerned at having to calculate the reductions on their own for each line item in the budget. “We’ll make sure there is as little confusion as possible,” said committee chairman Sen. Steve Ogden.
April 13th, 2007 at 5:54 am
[…] all this dough, lawmakers decided they would rather skim off the top of agency budgets to pay the Frew settlement, leaving those blessed tax cuts […]