Fitzsimon File

Here we go again, another round of attacks on Medicaid, the state and federal program to provide health care to specific groups of people who can’t afford it, people like the blind, the disabled, seniors, children, and poor pregnant women.

Medicaid continues to be mischaracterized, blamed for causing budget problems, instead of credited for saving lives and dollars.

The folks at North Carolina Citizens for Business and Industry want to lower the rate the state pays doctors for treating Medicaid patients to free up money to reduce taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals.

Lawmaker after lawmaker complains about Medicaid as legislative preview stories details the state’s budget problems.

The Locke Foundation constantly calls for cutting back Medicaid benefits and just providing ones mandated by the federal government. As you have read here before, those optional benefits include luxuries like medicine, ambulance care, physical therapy, and artificial limbs for people who lose an arm or leg.

Not long after the General Assembly convenes, House committees will undoubtedly consider a list of proposals to slash Medicaid spending and dramatically reduce benefits. The worst of these proposals have been defeated, but they will be back this year as the lawmakers face another budget shortfall.

Medicaid continues to be attacked because it is a government program that cost a lot of money and the cost, like all health care costs, continues to rise. Keeping benefits at current levels will cost more than $200 million next year.

But folks who want to cut Medicaid never want to talk about the specifics of the cuts they propose. That might be because 70 percent of Medicaid pays for services to seniors and people who are blind or disabled. Wonder which one of those groups the anti-government crowd would rather see go without basic health care?

Lower reimbursement rates often mean that people on Medicaid have a harder time finding a doctor. Cutting benefits mean people who need Medicaid can’t find a doctor at all.

And the battle to preserve Medicaid is not just being fought in North Carolina. The Kaiser Foundation reported recently that 23 states reduced coverage for children and adults last year and many are considering further cuts in 2005.

The attacks come despite studies like the one recently released by the State Center for Health Statistics that found $1.15 billion in hospitalization costs in North Carolina in 2002 could have been avoided with primary care intervention. In other words, spending money now keeps people healthy and saves money in the long run.

Why is that so hard to understand? Medicaid needs to be expanded, not reduced.

That’s tough when the debate starts from the wrong end. Medicaid is considered a drain on the state’s budget, not a program that provides basic health care to people who otherwise couldn’t’ afford it. The debate is about saving money to cut taxes, not finding money to make sure people see a doctor.

There is a long list of human service needs in North Carolina that state lawmakers need to address this year, from day care to mental health to AIDS drugs. But nothing is more vital than protecting Medicaid, which provides basic health care to the most vulnerable people in the state. No tax cut is more important than that.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 18th, 2005 at 11:29 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.