Originally posted by Albany Rifles
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Buck, this Medicare thing in Virginia portends badly for the state on several levels. Taking the Federal subsidy means accepting conditions which could place a large tax burden on the state. The subsidy is ok for year one, two and three, but after that it falls, and how far is totally up to the Feds. And taking it means adopting care standards determined by the Fed. Couple a shrinking subsidy with expanded services and future inflation and you could be looking at huge and rising costs to the state which will lead to either cut backs in other parts of the state budget or increased taxes.
This isn't about whether Federal dollars are bad, but the fine print that comes with some of them. Gaining a federal facility in some remote county has a positive economic impact, whereas signing on to federal grant program can have a negative economic impact because of the conditions they impose on the state. The latter is what the state GOP is attempting to fend off. It's a fiscal conservative position which the voters are free to reject, but so long as the state house of delegates are in control of the GOP, the Medicare subsidies will be rejected, unless, of course, if the governor is able to run the state without a budget, as he has threatened to do. It might be unconstitutional, but will make for some nice headlines.
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