<P> Medicaid is a health program for low - income families and people with certain medical needs in the United States . It is funded jointly by the federal and state governments, but implemented by states . Federal funding covers about half of Medicaid costs, and states are expected to cover the remainder . This means that any federally mandated increase in Medicaid spending forces states to spend more . However, as state participation in Medicaid is voluntary, it is not technically an unfunded mandate . </P> <P> The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act was passed in response to widespread concern about the quality of public education in America . The act was meant to decrease the gap between students who were performing very well and students who were performing poorly . The act required schools receiving federal funding to administer statewide standardized tests to students at the end of each year . If students did not show improvement from year to year on these tests, their schools were asked to work to improve the quality of the education by hiring highly qualified teachers and by tutoring struggling students . To continue receiving Federal grants, states had to develop plans that demonstrated their steps to improve the quality of education in their schools . The No Child Left Behind Act mandated that states fund the improvements in their schools and provide the appropriate training for less qualified teachers . </P> <P> Critics argue that unfunded mandates are inefficient and are an unfair imposition of the national government on the smaller governments . While many scholars do not object to the goals of the mandates, the way they are enforced and written are criticized for their ineffectiveness . State and local governments do not always disagree with the spirit of the mandate, however they often object to the high costs they must bear to carry out the objectives . </P> <P> The debate on unfunded federal mandates is visible in cases such as New York v. United States, mentioned above . In School District of Pontiac, Michigan v. Duncan, the plaintiffs alleged that the school district need not comply with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 because the federal government did not provide them sufficient funding; the court concluded that insufficient federal funds were not a valid reason to not comply with a federal mandate . </P>

Give some examples of mandats that are funded and unfunded