Governor manchin has been appointed to the Medicaid commission.

The national panel will advise U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt on how to modernize the state-and-federal insurance program.

Florida Governor Jeb Bush also was named to the commission.

Other members include health policy leaders, state health department officials, public policy organizations and people with disabilities.

Medicaid provides health care for more than 300-thousand needy, aged, blind, disabled and low-income West Virginians.

The state department of health and human resources said earlier this year that it needs to cut nearly 116 million dollars out of West Virginia's medicaid program because it faces a 156 million-dollar deficit.