Patrick wraps up two-day visit to Washington

Patrick met with the secretaries of transportation, the Navy, and Health and Human Services on Wednesday afternoon and visited with wounded Massachusetts National Guard and Army servicemen at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Accompanied by House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, Patrick met yesterday morning with the state’s congressional delegation. Then, Patrick, DeLeo, and Governor Jim Doyle of Wisconsin lunched at the White House with David Axelrod - Patrick’s former political consultant and now a top adviser to the president - and said a brief hello to Obama in the Oval Office. Doyle and Patrick later met with the two top Democrats in Congress, Senate majority leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“Everybody’s giving us a lot of time,’’ Patrick said in an interview. “They have been very open to taking my phone calls and giving us the time to visit. Nobody’s promising what they can’t deliver. . . . But I think it’s important for folks to know what things are important to me, and the things that are important to me are the things that create jobs.’’

Brad Jones, the top Republican in the Massachusetts House and a frequent critic of Patrick’s, allowed: “I think the governor going down to Washington, D.C., to lobby on behalf of the Commonwealth is exactly one of the things that any governor should be doing.’’

Jones said Patrick, who faces what appears to be tough reelection fight next year, could benefit politically from the perception that he is close to the Obama administration. But those close ties come with risks, he added. “If a health care bill is passed that hurts Massachusetts, that runs the risk of people saying, ‘Hey governor, your closeness [to the administration] didn’t do us any good.’’

At the White House and on Capitol Hill, Patrick said he repeatedly pushed to make sure Massachusetts and other states with the most generous Medicaid programs are not penalized in the health care overhaul for having made more poor families eligible earlier than most other states.

The House bill would provide additional money to help pay for those earlier expansions - Massachusetts would get about $400 million more a year over the next decade. The Senate has not completed its bill, but one of the two Senate committee proposals now being melded together would not give states such as Massachusetts extra money.

US Senators John F. Kerry and Paul G. Kirk Jr. of Massachusetts and a dozen or so other senators are asking Reid to raise the Medicaid match rate for such states by 3 percent, which could bring in an additional $300 million a year for Massachusetts over the next decade. Reid has said he understands their concerns but has made no commitments.

“We’re working on it, we’re working on it,’’ Kerry said.

Patrick, whose popularity has sunk with the state’s economic troubles, said he spoke with Axelrod and others about the political landscape confronting Democratic governors “in this crummy economy,’’ but he would not provide specifics.

“I keep focusing on how to get people back to work,’’ the governor said. “And I think those two are connected - we get the economy fixed and people back to work, and I think the election will take care of itself.’’

Patrick said he has high hopes for a variety of projects he was pushing while in the nation’s capital, including efforts to expand broadband access in rural and low-income urban areas of the state, to adjust fishery regulations, and organize the state’s efforts to secure federal grant opportunities. He said he brought a list of all the major grants the state is seeking, and the congressional delegation divvied up lobbying responsibility.

At Walter Reed, Patrick met one wounded soldier who he discovered had been collecting the trash at Patrick’s Milton home for years. And he choked up when he spoke of a young man whose best childhood friend had come down to keep him company during his recovery from a truck accident in Afghanistan.

“Their sacrifice is so profound, and they’re almost matter-of-fact about it - it’s like, ‘That’s what we do,’ ’’ he said. “It’s very inspiring.’’

The trip also gave other state officials the chance to interact with high-level officials. Dr. JudyAnn Bigby, the state secretary of Health and Human Services, accompanied the governor to some of his meetings. And DeLeo, walking with Representative Edward Markey, the dean of the Bay State delegation, bumped into Pelosi in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall.

“He’s so visionary,’’ Pelosi gushed to DeLeo, referring to Markey, who co-authored the major global warming bill the House passed earlier this year. “He’s so far ahead of all the rest of us.’’

“Get out of here,’’ Markey said, looking pleased.