Congressional buck passing has state officials worried
The Republican Governors Association met this week in Austin, TX. I don’t know about you, but when I think of Republicans in Austin, one word comes to mind: party.
On Thursday, the RGA met to discuss Democrats’ health care overhaul, specifically the cost impact on states that will bear the brunt of coverage expansions through Medicaid. At a press conference that followed, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels had the most direct critique of the proposal, if you can believe it.
In what is becoming a common occurrence, the Senate held a cloture vote on Saturday night when no one was looking. The procedural vote sends the health care reform bill to the Senate floor for open debate and consideration by the full Senate.
In recent weeks Congressional Democratic leaders have been able to win over moderate members by diffusing the massive price tag. Those costs haven’t gone away, they have just been kicked down the road a few years or passed on to state governments.
Billions more in Medicaid spending to support Congressional health care coverage goals couldn’t come at a worse time for states in financial crisis. Indiana has weathered the recession better than most states, but the prospect of billions in new Medicaid costs has Indiana legislators speaking out as well. Senate President David Long told WIBC reporter Eric Berman that he is “scared to death” that Congress will dump a massive new entitlement program on the laps of legislators. He had this message for Congress:
“I hope the message is sent and heard in Washington that you can’t get away with claiming you’re not having a negative and sour economic impact on your home state just because you didn’t raise federal taxes,” Long says. — WIBC
Unfortunately for Sen. Long and his colleagues, that’s exactly the political standard that Democrats are applying to reform. After all, if the costs associated with a federally mandated expansion of Medicaid forces the Indiana General Assembly to cut education or other state-based services, no one is going to be knocking on the doors of Congress demanding answers.
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Seriously? It was only the top story on every news station, newspaper, and internet outlet. The process started months ago, this vote has been scheduled for almost a week, and the debate and vote took all day Saturday. The idea that this was some sort of sneaky or unusual procedure is just not supported by any evidence.
And if you want to start hyping Mitch Daniels’ predictions of what this health care bill will mean, it might be informative to look at Mitch’s history of predictions. Like during the last push to reform health care in 1994, when Mitch said that health care costs wouldn’t continue to increase, and that the market was “well into the process” of self-correcting.
Or maybe we should look at Mitch’s prediction about the cost of war in Iraq. As OMB Director, his fully-informed, official prediction was that the Iraq War would cost only $50 billion. So far, we’ve spent $687 billion and counting.
So I don’t put much stock in Mitch’s dire predictions, and I don’t see why anyone else would either.
scare us again – “forces the Indiana General Assembly to cut education or other state-based services”. Cuts! Cuts! Cuts! Education! State services! Horrors! They won’t be the Governor’s fault. No, it’ll be that horrible General Assembly. It’ll be forced on them by that horrible federal government. Bad General Assembly. Bad federal government. Good Mitch. Good boy. Good for you for not tapping into Indiana’s rainy day fund to help Hoosiers recover from the second worst national economic meltdown in our country’s history. Just go ahead and make state departments reduce spending and force service and education cuts onto hapless citizens. That will help them in a recession. The fact that it might make Mitch look good and Washington bad is just icing on the cake for Republicans, isn’t it? How about an impartial analysis of the health care reform proposals? Oh, wait, I forgot, it was a GOP Governor’s meeting to which they all flew to and stayed in hotels at taxpayer expense so they could read McConnell’s and Boehner’s non-constructive bilgewater.
Here’s a fair characterization of the GOP plan:
“The GOP plan would have the smallest economic impact on the large group market that serves people working for large businesses that have access to the cheapest coverage. Those premiums would decline by zero to 3 percent, the CBO said.
The analysis shows the Republican plan would do little to expand coverage … The CBO found that under the Republican plan, insurance coverage would increase by about 3 million and that the percentage of insured non-elderly adults would remain at about 83 percent after ten years.”
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/CBO-Prepublican-health-plan-would-reduce-premiums–69270747.html
Yes, it’s very moral, don’t expand coverage to Americans who need it and want it. Don’t lower premiums. Don’t do anything to help real struggling citizens, just scare them by talking about alleged service and education cuts. How tiresome.
finding a huge mandate in the Democrat’s healthcare proposals forcing states to pick up markedly higher Medicare tabs in the near future (translated into your words as during this “financial crisis”).
From the Associated Press:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gm81TTE7a0EUL9JlzVML1dnH2N2gD9C43GRG2
The Senate Democratic bill
HOW IT’S PAID FOR: … Cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.
CHANGES TO MEDICAID: Income eligibility levels likely to be standardized to 133 percent of poverty, which is $29,327 a year for a family of four, for all parents, children and pregnant women. Federal government would pick up the full cost of the expansion during the first three years. States could negotiate with insurers to arrange coverage for people with incomes slightly higher than the cutoff for Medicaid.
The House Bill
HOW IT’S PAID FOR: … There are also more than $400 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid
CHANGES TO MEDICAID: The federal-state insurance program for the poor would be expanded to cover all individuals under age 65 with incomes up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level, which is $33,075 per year for a family of four. The federal government would pick up the full cost of the expansion in 2013 and 2014; thereafter the federal government would pay 91 percent and states would pay 9 percent.
I’d be interested in seeing the study you and the Republican governors are using to make their conclusions.
It seems to me even the most pessimistic economist is saying this “financial crisis” will be over by 2015, when states would have to pay 9 percent of increased Medicaid coverage.