The potentially crushing cost of health care overhaul has Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen working the phones with the U.S. Senate Finance Committee. He’s instructing members and their staffs how state budgets work.
“There’s constant discussion among the staffs about keeping the 10 year costs of this under such and such a money or keeping it whole. Well, that’s nice but I don’t have 10 years to integrate over. I’ve got to make it work in 2010 and then I got to make it work in 2011 and somebody’s got to make it work in 2012.”
Bredesen says discussion of expanding Medicaid would have a particular impact on the state. One proposal, by his estimate, would require as much as another $800 million from state coffers each year. Bredesen says that’s money the state doesn’t have.
As a former health care executive and entrepreneur, Bredesen says he has strong opinions about the direction reforms should go, but he’s keeping those views to himself. He says he needs to represent the governors on the health care issue.
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