In defending her budget votes to a group of activists this week, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers said Gov. Chris Gregoire and legislators are in a better position to know what’s best for Medicaid, the program that provides medical care for low-income residents.

“I voted to save these programs,” McMorris Rodgers said of her vote for a House GOP budget plan crafted by Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

But the budget plan she supported makes a significant change to Medicaid that Gregoire strenuously opposes. It would turn the federal share of that program into a “block grant”, a lump sum payment.

“I remain strongly opposed to any congressional effort to impose Medicaid as a block grant program in Washington,” Gregoire wrote in a recent letter to the Wall Street Journal. . .