Skip Navigation


Publius: The Journal of Federalism Advance Access originally published online on September 20, 2008
Publius: The Journal of Federalism 2009 39(1):1-21; doi:10.1093/publius/pjn025
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
39/1/1    most recent
pjn025v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Request Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Esterling, K. M.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of CSF Associates: Publius, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

This article appears in the following Publius: The Journal of Federalism issue: Federalism and Health Policy [View the issue table of contents]

Does the Federal Government Learn from the States? Medicaid and the Limits of Expertise in the Intergovernmental Lobby

Kevin M. Esterling*
*University of California – Riverside; kevin.esterling{at}ucr.edu

State programmatic expertise is an important asset to federal systems, but this expertise is not always informative to federal decision-makers. I argue the degree to which state expertise is informative to federal decision-makers depends on how well the policy interests of state and federal levels are aligned. I illustrate variation in these conditions using case studies of congressional politics over the Medicaid program. I then apply a statistical test, which demonstrates that states’ programmatic expertise regarding Medicaid is less persuasive to congressional committee members compared to other witnesses who are equally knowledgeable. The results suggest a "failure of federalism," where the public good potential of state programmatic expertise often is not realized in the federal system.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.