By WAYNE GREENE Senior Writer on Apr 11, 2011, at 2:05 PM Updated on 4/11 at 2:05 PM
WAYNE'S WORLD
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Here’s an interesting note about the $54 million grant the federal government has given Oklahoma to pay for a health care exchange: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services paid for the grant from a fund that is literally bottomless.
The grant has split the state’s Republican Party with one faction arguing that the state should accept the grant and use the money to build a market-based, Oklahoma-designed health care exchange that would be better than the exchange the federal government will impose on the state otherwise. The party’s most conservative elements have argued that accepting the money commits the state to the federal health care law, and it is hypocritical to accept money from a law that the state argues is unconstitutional.
Interestingly, it turns out the federal health care law gave Health and Human Service unlimited funding for paying for exchange grants, as is confirmed by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in this exchange with U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich.:
In other words, if Oklahoma gave the grant money back -- a good possiblity -- it couldn't be argued the feds will just give it to someone else, because there is absolutely no limit on the feds ability to give out money under the program anyway.
Upton has authored H.R. 1213 which would put limitations on that grant program.
The bill passed a House committed on a 31-20 vote.
An aide to Upton told me in an email that the legal change wouldn’t change the status of Oklahoma’s $54 million grant. Although Oklahoma hasn't spent any of the money, the grant is considered "awarded" at this point.
Former Oklahoma Congressman Ernest Istook talks about H.R. 1213 and four other efforts to defund the president’s health care initiative in
this blog on the Heritage Foundation’s website.
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