ABSTRACT
In January 1967, before the passage of the restrictive Social Security Amendments, the President's budget predicted total federal and state medical vendor payments of $2.25 billion in fiscal 1968, with 48 states participating. The 1967 Amendments had given the Washington office a blue-ribbon advisory council which might have been used to publicize administrative problems and staffing difficulties. The clear acceptance in HEW's Delivery of Health Services for the Poor that Medicaid was one of HEW's array of health programs marked a new consciousness of federal involvement in the program. Information was, however, beginning to be gathered outside HEW. Indeed, the first major attempt to describe Medicaid was undertaken by a private institution, the New York-based Tax Foundation, Inc., an independent research organization. The combined impact of private and Congressional complaints about HEW's inability to produce acceptable regulations provided a salutory jolt to HEW administrators.
