The Campaign Finance Board dealt Herman Badillo's cash-poor mayoral campaign a setback yesterday when it rejected his request to count donations totaling about $20,000 from 127 New Yorkers toward the amount he needs to qualify for matching city funds.

Hospitals in Utah, which have committed up to $10 million a year in free care for the program's patients - a figure that does not count donations by medical specialists - say the real cost is running closer to $13 million.

Mrs. Daly of the Catholic Conference said the Social Security Administration was moving with "uncharacteristic haste" to count donations of food, clothing and shelter as income.

For the fiscal year ending in June 2002, it raised almost $1.7 million, not counting donations earmarked for victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The video also showed him making grotesque faces as he counted donations from a congregation in New York and other pastors making obscene gestures.

The Administration contends that the practice of raising Federal money by counting donations and taxes as part of a state's Medicaid share is a major factor in the "explosion" of Federal Medicaid costs, from $41 billion last year to $52 billion this year and a projected $62 billion next year.

The NewTithing ranking, by its nature, also fails to count donations that are not tax-deductible, like informal gifts and time spent on community service.

States count these taxes and donations as part of their share of Medicaid and can get back in Federal matching funds as much as four dollars for every one collected.

The calculations counted donations from individuals who had listed themselves as associated with the health care industry, like doctors or insurance company executives, and added those numbers to contributions from the industry's political action committees.