ABSTRACT
From 2001 to 2008, Medicaid policy was shaped less by programmatic issues than by extraneous factors: economic and demographic trends, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, narrow legislative majorities, and unfinished business from the past. In November of 2002, Republicans regained their majority in the Senate and strengthened their hold on the House. Meanwhile, rising health care costs and a weakened economy were pushing state Medicaid programs toward fiscal crisis. Against this background, two of the most significant Medicaid initiatives of the decade emerged—not from the Congress, but from the administration— in the form of a new waiver, the "Health Insurance Flexibility and Accountability Demonstration Waiver" and the administration's "New Freedom Initiative". One legislative initiative of significance for Medicaid was the Grassley-Baucus "Emergency Health Care Relief Act of 2005", which would have provided five months of noncategorical fully funded Medicaid coverage for low-income hurricane survivors.
