Congressional approval of a $26 billion state aid package for health care and education will deliver enough money for Oregon to erase nearly half its current budget deficit. Local school districts expect to use much of their share of the funds to restore school days. With potentially bigger shortfalls in the future, state leaders warned that the federal aid won't fully eliminate Oregon's fiscal problems.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a $26 billion bill that includes extra health care funding - a projected $126 million - and additional education money - $65 million - for New Mexico at a time when many say the state is in desperate need of a cash infusion. The majority of the federal aid won't help close that gap. The amount of health care money headed New Mexico's way in the bill that passed the U.S. House on Tuesday is less than what was anticipated by the state's budget-writers.

Rounds said Tuesday that the bill approved by the House and previously passed by the U.S. Senate will bring $21 million to $23 million to South Dakota in federal assistance for the state's growing Medicaid burden. But another $26 million in education-jobs funding is a more difficult question, Rounds said.

That stimulus money could come with stipulations, possibly including a requirement that the state and local property taxpayers add more money to the school-aid formula. That would be a problem, Rounds said. "We'd like to use the $26 million. But if it means we need to raise local property taxes to go along with it, I don't think we'd go along with that," he said.

Idaho public schools appear poised to receive about $51 million in federal funding to help offset painful cuts made while dealing with state budget shortfalls. The funding for Idaho is part of a $26 billion spending bill that the U.S. House of Representatives approved 247-161. The other $16 billion in the bill will extend by another six months the increased level of federal Medicaid funding that states began receiving through the 2009 federal stimulus act.

Pennsylvania will receive $668 million to help pay for Medicaid and $387.8 million to save K-12 education jobs as a result of a $26 billion bill signed by President Barack Obama.

Georgia could get more than $550 million in federal aid to help teachers and other public employees to keep their jobs and fill budget shortfalls in Medicaid and other programs under an emergency aid bill passed by Congress and quickly signed by the president. With a new school year already under way, state officials were still determining how Georgia could use its share of the $26 billion aid packageafter the U.S. House passed the legislation in a rare special session.

The House passed legislation containing $66 million for Vermont to expand Medicaid and prevent hundreds of teacher layoffs.

More than 1,200 education jobs in southern Missouri will be saved thanks to a $26.1 billion emergency funding bill approved Tuesday by the House and signed into law by President Obama. The bill would send Missouri $292 million for Medicaid and $189.7 million to help cash-strapped schools rehire staff or prevent future layoffs. The education funding will save 3,000 jobs statewide and more than 1,200 in the 4th, 7th and 8th congressional districts. The Medicaid funding would help states meet other budget needs, such as keeping thousands of police officers, nurses and other public workers employed.

Mississippi would receive $249.6 million for Medicaid and public schools under a jobs bill the U.S. House passed Tuesday. Republican Gov. Haley Barbour called the bill "terrible" and said it would force the state to cut spending on programs such as economic development. "This is Congress far exceeding the authority of the federal government by forcing states to change already-adopted budgets to meet the desires of the far left," Barbour said in a news release.

Montana will receive $68 million to expand Medicaid and prevent hundreds of teacher layoffs, according to legislation signed into law Tuesday by President Barack Obama.

In the wake of a 2012 Supreme Court ruling, states face complex decisions con cerning whether to expand Medicaid coverage as specified in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). With the federal government no longer able to coerce expansion, states must base their decisions on subjective value judgments that will vary from state to state, incorporating each state's unique budgetary circumstances, the needs of its uninsured population, and the incentives established by interactions between the ACA's provisions. A first important consideration is that states face substantial near-term Medicaid cost increases irrespective of coverage expansion decisions.

Alternative views on the problem the United States is facing: financing retirement consumption as its population ages.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), signed into law on March 23, 2010, made significant changes to the way eligibility for the Medicaid program will be determined and who the program will cover. State governments will play a key role in implementing many aspects of this reform, which must be in place by the beginning of 2014. States will need to address the financial implications of implementing this Medicaid expansion and accompanying enrollment systems.

State finances are not transparent and often include hidden liabilities as well as rapidly growing responsibilities which are difficult to control.  While state revenues are gradually recovering from the drastic decline of the Great Recession, they are not growing sufficiently to keep pace with the spending required by Medicaid costs, pensions, and other responsibilities and obligations.  This has resulted in persistent and growing structural deficits in many states which threaten their fiscal sustainability.

An examination of Medicaid spending by state over a decade.  In 2009, the 10 states where per capita spending was highest ranged from 13 to 36 percent higher than the national average, and the 10 states where per capita spending was lowest ranged from 8 to 26 percent below the national average.

The sixth-annual Tennessee Pork Report is chock-full yet again, of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement of taxpayer money by state and local government officials. Despite a changing political landscape in Tennessee, wasteful government spending has not disappeared.

This study examines the potential increase in Medicaid costs from ObamaCare for the State of Texas-one of several states that have challenged the validity of the individual health insurance mandate in court. This study constructs Texas' Medicaid spending projections under ObamaCare to reveal the implied increase in that state's Medicaid spending commitments from the new health care law.

The biggest problem with the Medicaid expansion in the Senate health bill is not the "Cornhusker Kickback," but that it leverages an already flawed formula to determine federal payments to state Medicaid programs

This report outlines Medicaid's current problems, explains how Medicaid is financed, describes and quantifies
the impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) on state programs, and then offers
policy options for moving forward.

Three Things to Fix Health Care Now:

#1: Reject the Health Insurance Exchange
#2: Don't Expand Medicaid
#3: Offer an Alternative

Supporters of Obamacare claim that expanding Medicaid will entail little to no cost to state governments, since the federal government will fund the vast majority of the additional costs. Indeed, some analyses project states achieving savings from adopting the expansion. However, state lawmakers should be wary of accepting such analyses at face value.

Block-granting Medicaid is the best way to deliver better, cost-effective care to the most vulnerable Americans.

Any serious attempt at state budget reform in North Carolina must include an examination of its Medicaid program. Costs have been soaring, and past cost-containment efforts have proven both insufficient and detrimental to enrollees' access to care. Moreover, Medicaid enrollees are merely passive participants in the program with little or no choices, and at the mercy of the whims of politicians.

The Health Care Compact is an interstate compact - which is really just "an agreement between two or more states that is consented to by Congress" - that would return the authority and the responsibility to regulate health care back to the member states.

Replacing MinnesotaCare with a state subsidy for individually owned private health plans is one of the key parts of the effort to redesign how the state provides health care to the poor. This can save $100 million on childless adults and up to $600 million if everyone is included.

In light of Oregon facing a budget crisis, the Taxpayer Foundation has issued a master list of budget balancing ideas that do not require raising taxes. These ideas have been collected from Oregon lawmakers, think tank groups, taxpayer organizations, unions, policy analysts, Democrats, Republicans and even ideas utilized in states across the nation.

despite constraints that are both political and self-imposed, we believe that it is quite possible to reduce unnecessary and wasteful spending throughout the New Mexico budget. In order to provide a guide for policymakers, the Rio Grande Foundation has compiled a list of specific budget reduction ideas.

Establish limited priorities for Oklahoma’s state government. Once limited priorities are set, everything else should be considered according to these priorities. The state currently has hundreds of agencies, boards, and commissions; it’s no wonder there is chronic overspending and regular “revenue shortfalls.”

Replacing the current federal financing structure of Medicaid with fixed allotments to the states would help save both state and federal budgets. Without this policy change, states will dig further budgetary holes and the federal government will face an increased likelihood of a debt crisis.  If states received a non-fungible Medicaid block grant from the federal government rather than fungible matching funds, each state would have the incentive to reign in Medicaid spending.  If states were freed from the myriad federal mandates (such as the “maintenance of effort” clause of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) they would gain the ability to run Medicaid efficiently.