The role of state political beliefs and economic resources in setting health policy: The case of Medicaid hospital funding

This study is directed at understanding the relationship between state political belief systems, state budgetary resources and state Medicaid enrollment decisions and their effects on the level of state per capita Medicaid hospital expenditure. It tests the theory that there are three different political subcultures that relate state political belief systems to state and local taxation decisions, to the allocation of state taxes to the Medicaid program and their effects on per capita Medicaid hospital expenditure controlling for per capita state personal income and for state Medicaid enrollment effort. It is posited that the independent variables state public political ideology represents a political belief system that is distinguishable from the independent variable state political subculture in its impact on the dependent variable per capita Medicaid hospital expenditure.