THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 1, 1995 TAG: 9511010012
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
A Republican Congress is intent on sending responsibility for welfare and Medicaid back to the states. So far the debate has focused on whether that's a good idea and how much money states will get. But Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., has been more concerned with the question of which states will get how much. He's got a point.
Graham first raised an alarm concerning welfare reform. He noticed that block grants were to be based on how much money states were currently receiving. But, he argued, that would lock in existing inequities.
Instead, Graham proposed that federal funds should be distributed to states based on the number of children living in poverty - so a poor child in Virginia would be treated no differently from a poor child anywhere else. Under his formula, Virginia would receive $67 million more than under the Republican plan.
In Graham's latest crusade, he's attacking the way the budget bill that passed the Senate last Friday allocated Medicaid money. In an 11th-hour deal, the formula for distributing money was altered.
``There is no rationale to the allocation formula in this bill,'' Graham said. ``Those states that have two Democratic senators lost $3.6 billion. The states that have two Republican senators gained $11.2 billion.'' In the most glaring example, Texas stands to gain 10.6 percent in Medicaid money while California stands to lose 5.1 percent.
What Graham really means is that the allocation rationale is obvious - it's pure politics. The formula was jiggered to buy votes and reward partisans. Not only was a formula adopted that favors states represented by Republicans, additional money was voted to seven states needed to nail down support of a bill that eventually passed 52-47. They winners were Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Washington and Vermont.
One reason critics have feared block grants for safety-net programs is the issue of fairness. They worry that state support will vary widely so an accident of geography will determine how well a child in poverty is treated or the quality of nursing-home care available to seniors.
Now, the method adopted to return money to the states reinforces such concerns. If the formulas contained in the present legislation actually make it into the finished law, recipients of welfare or Medicaid dollars may actually fare better or worse depending on which party their state's elected officials happen to belong to and whether or not their votes were needed to pass the balanced-budget legislation.
That isn't the way spending priorities ought to be set. There is still time in conference to adopt a more equitable allocation formula. Congress should do so. by CNB