Gov. Jim Doyle said he used a meeting with President Barack Obama to make sure the health-reform bill before Congress doesn't disadvantage the state.

Doyle said he was concerned that Wisconsin, a state that has aggressively covered the uninsured, could see fewer rewards under a final reform bill than states that have done little to help their citizens get coverage.

Along with Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, another state that has expanded health coverage, Doyle met Thursday with senior White House officials, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The House of Representatives could vote on health reform legislation as early as this weekend.

"I was there to really make the case, that the so-called leading-edge states, about 12 of us, that have significantly built out our medical care systems and the availability of health care would be disadvantaged," Doyle told media at the state Capitol on Friday.

Since February 2008, Wisconsin has expanded its BadgerCare Plus Medicaid program with federal help to cover all uninsured children and more parents and childless adults. In 2008, 9.1 percent of Wisconsin residents went without health insurance for at least part of the year, tying the state for fifth-best in the nation, the U.S. Census Bureau reports.

Jon Peacock, research director for the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, said the need to hold down the cost of the reform bill could lead Congress to focus new incentives on states that haven't expanded their Medicaid programs yet to lure them into doing so. That would in effect penalize Wisconsin for having expanded the programs first.

"That's a huge shift of resources to a lot of southern states," he said.

Doyle said the bill currently before the House did a better job of addressing that concern than Senate proposals so far.

Doyle flew to Washington, D.C., with Obama aboard Air Force One following the president's visit to Madison on Wednesday. Doyle, who also met with White House political director Patrick Gaspard, said he discussed with Obama the Democratic primary race for governor in Wisconsin.

Democrats have not been able to field a credible candidate in that race since Doyle said he would not run in August. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who talked to Gaspard in Madison on Wednesday, is considering a run.

"He's obviously interested in who's in and who's thinking about it and those kinds of things," Doyle said of Obama.

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