On Friday, March 21st, the U.S. House passed H. Con. Res. 95, The Budget Resolution For Fiscal 2004.  This resolution unfortunately contains deep and widespread cuts in the health insurance safety net that protects Arkansas’s most vulnerable populations.  The budget would require Congressional committees to cut programs vital to Arkansas’s health care system such as Medicaid over the next ten years.  The Democratic Members of the Arkansas Delegation did not support this resolution.  The alternate Democratic budget would have protected Medicaid and provided $10 billion in additional fiscal relief to states this year.

Medicaid is a health insurance program jointly funded by the states and the federal government.  Each state designs and administers its own program within broad federal guidelines.  In the past two years, many states, including Arkansas, have instituted Medicaid budget cuts because of continuing budget shortfalls.  

Under the Republican budget resolution, Arkansas could lose an estimated $1,047,000,000 in federal Medicaid funds over 10 years, if cuts are distributed evenly among states.  The cuts will place Arkansas’s successful ARKids program at risk, which insures thousands of low-income children.  These cuts will also seriously hinder the health insurance safety net for Arkansas’s seniors, disabled, and expectant mothers.  Further, cuts to these programs would not only hurt Medicaid beneficiaries, it would also hinder spending in the health care sector such as hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and other providers, endangering the survival of many health care industry jobs.

“As the budget process goes on we will continue to advocate for reinstating these Medicaid cuts and providing the additional fiscal relief that Arkansas requires,” U.S. Rep. Vic Snyder said.  

"It all comes down to priorities, and for me, this is a pretty easy decision to make.  Are we going to make sure that children and senior citizens receive adequate health care or are we going to offer a tax cut that doesn't help the economy, doesn't create jobs and doesn't help working families?  I expect to spend the months ahead making sure that our national budget reflects the priorities of Arkansas working families," U.S. Rep. Marion Berry said.

"Medicaid assists some of our state's most vulnerable, including the elderly, children and the disabled," Ross said.  "Our country's state budgets are operating without sufficient help from the federal government during these tough economic times, leaving too many Americans unserved.  In fact, states suffered from a $25 billion shortfall this year and that number is estimated to grow to as much as $80 billion next year, the worst financial crisis facing our state's since the great depression.  I am disappointed that this budget was allowed to proceed with such staggering cuts, and I urge our colleagues in the Senate to continue our fight to properly fund this program."