MA and ALL "do gooder" states will get the extra Medicaid in the current bill

[karynnj]

The bill released yesterday would give Massachusetts a big boost in Medicaid assistance to help pay for insurance coverage for lower-income people, sending an additional $2 billion to the state over the next ten years.

The provision, which would compensate all states for covering more Medicaid patients, would send even more additional money to the Bay State than a Senate-approved “special deal’’ that Obama insisted be removed. The Senate deal would have granted Massachusetts $500 million over three years, with no guarantee of extra assistance after that.

“This is a huge deal,’’ Senator John F. Kerry said in an interview. “This is not a special deal for Massachusetts. What it is, is a fix that is going to take place across the country,’’ said Kerry, who has been negotiating with the White House and colleagues on the Medicaid issue throughout the process.
<snip - and they really did fix the excise plan >
The House bill would include a tax on high-end, so-called Cadillac health insurance plans, but it raises the threshold to plans costing more than $10,200 a year for individuals and $27,500 for families. Pelosi said the new formula made it a “Platinum Rolls Royce tax.’’ It also would not begin until 2018. The AFL-CIO, which had fought the concept of taxing Cadillac plans for months, said yesterday that it supported the new plan.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/03/19/democrats_offer_940b_health_bill_for_final_test/?page=2

Kerry's efforts on both of these things have resulted in good features here. The original formula for Medicaid was unfair to many blue states, including NJ. Most,if not all of these states are already the states with the lowest return on the money they give the country. The formula was likely a cynical way to keep the cost down, but get votes of Conservative Democratic Senators concerned about the impact on their states - taking the blue state Senators for granted.

The Platinum Rolls Royce tax will have some, but less impact bending the cost curve, but it now should hit just the intended targets.