Good leadership Harry -- Majority Leader Protects Home State; Huge unfunded mandates for state funding of Medicaid is in all of the health bills.

From The New York Times:

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, has secured a special deal protecting his state against the costs of expanding Medicaid under one of the major health care bills moving through Congress.

The Senate bill, like a companion measure in the House, would expand Medicaid to cover childless adults, parents and other people with incomes less than 133 percent of the poverty level, or $29,327 for a family of four. The federal government would pay most of the new costs — anywhere from 77 percent to 95 percent, with a higher share in poorer states, in the first five years.

Many parents and childless adults would qualify for Medicaid for the first time . . . . And many people who are eligible but not enrolled would sign up for Medicaid because, under the legislation, they could be required to pay financial penalties if they did not have insurance.

Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, said states must share the cost of covering the uninsured.

“We are going to have a real hard time dealing with this problem,” Mr. Conrad said, “if it is all supposed to be on the federal government, which has record deficits and record debt, and if the states just expect the federal government to write a check for 100 percent of everything.”

All the major health care bills moving through Congress would expand Medicaid, adding perhaps 11 million people to the rolls, the Congressional Budget Office says.