Norton Introduces Bill to Reduce D.C. Medicaid Costs

Norton Introduces Bill to Reduce D.C. Medicaid Costs

March 31, 2011

WASHINGTON, DC -- Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today introduced the District of Columbia Medicaid Reimbursement Act, to relieve the District of a portion of healthcare costs it has uniquely borne for years. The bill is particularly important for the District today in light of the new healthcare reform law, which expands Medicaid eligibility for low-income individuals and families, effective 2014. The District, almost alone among U.S. cities, pays for 30 percent of Medicaid, a federal and state function. New York City is the only other city that pays any portion of Medicaid, but it pays only 25 percent. The bill will raise the federal contribution to the District's Medicaid program to 75 percent, equal to New York City's, rather than leaving the District paying more than the largest city in the United States. The Norton bill would complete what she started with the National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government Improvement Act of 1997, under which she got Congress to pay 70 percent of the District's Medicaid costs, rather than the crippling 50 percent it had been paying, which was partly responsible for the city's economic crisis.

The bill is the eighth in her "Free and Equal D.C." series of bills, to end the unequal treatment of the District of Columbia and its residents. Norton said, "Medicaid is crippling entire states and no city in the country carries the burden the District does. Free and equal status means not only budget and legislative autonomy. It also means removing old practices that deny the city equal shares."