Getting a Head Start
The States and Health Care Reform
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
Excerpt
SEVERAL years ago, Bruce Vladeck, PhD, who is now the administrator of the Health Care Financing Agency, pointed out that health policy "is the last great unsettled area of federal-state relations." Although he was referring to intergovernmental quarrels over Medicaid, his remark also foreshadowed the growing tension over which responsibilities (fiscal and otherwise) will be federal and which will fall to the states as health care reform takes shape.
Former New York Congressman Otis Pike years ago observed that no city will undertake to pay for any activity it thinks it can get the state to pay for, and no state will undertake to pay for any activity it thinks it can get the federal government to pay for. The Medicaid program, passed by Congress in 1965, is a classic example of shared turf and its problems. Funded jointly by states and the federal government, administered by states but regulated
Footnotes
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Ms Friedman is also contributing editor for Hospitals and Health Networks and the Healthcare Forum Journal and is a contributing writer for Health Alliance Alert and Health Management Quarterly.
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Reprint requests to 851 W Gunnison, Unit G, Chicago, IL 60640 (Ms Friedman).
