Stateline: Socialized Medicine = Fiscally Conservative

Stateline.org has an interesting article on health care funding in the states. The headline reads "On health care, govs are tightening belts." Here are some examples of "belt-tightening":

Governors in California, Illinois and Pennsylvania couldn’t get major universal coverage measures through their legislatures last year. They all vowed early this year to press the issue again. ...

[New Mexico] Gov. Bill Richardson (D) set his sights on achieving universal coverage by the time his successor is elected in 2010. “The time for universal health care is now.” ...

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D) has called for an expansion that would allow 17,000 more children to get health care, while Iowa Gov. Chet Culver (D) announced plans to cover another 7,500. ...

Drying up federal resources stopped South Dakota’s governor from trying to make more families eligible for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. ...

Well before he resigned, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) blasted the Bush administration for
blocking the Empire State from offering SCHIP coverage to families making up to four times the federal poverty level [$80,000 for a family of four]. ...

Spitzer, who steps down Monday (March 17) in the wake of a sex scandal, suggested to lawmakers that New York pay for the entire cost of the expansion if the federal government doesn't. ...

But Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) ... asked legislators in his state of the state address for a new hospital tax, which would also help net $275 million in new matching federal funds. ...

Diminishing funds could delay Maryland’s plans, approved last fall, to offer Medicaid benefits to 30,000 parents. ...

Besides health insurance, governors are looking at less controversial, and less costly, health measures. In their state of the state addresses, they backed programs to train more nurses, make state employees healthier, detect diseases, fight autism, combat childhood obesity and allow seniors to get medical care at home.

Apparently belt tightening means that a few states are delaying major spending increases, while the rest of the state continue to push massive expansions of government program and tax hikes. I think a lot of governors' need to learn the concept of a spending diet.