ABSTRACT
Congressional attitudes toward the fiscal, medical, and political problems of Medicaid continued to be dominated by the programs in New York and California, the two largest Title XIX programs. While Medicaid expenditures in New York continued to exceed those in California, the costs of medical vendor payments had risen rapidly in the latter state. New York's difficulties were both fiscal and administrative. While the cost question plagued legislators in both New York and Washington, the administration of the program was running into serious problems in dealing with health care providers. In Washington, Senator Jacob Javits had begun recommending changes that would cut back Medicaid, by abandoning the principles of statewide standards and equivalent services for all eligible groups that had been at the heart of P.L. 89-97. The Congress, in seeking to control federal costs, had rejected Medicaid as a program with national eligibility levels: eligibility was to continue to vary arbitrarily from state to state.
