This is just depressing as hell: State House News Service and WBUR are reporting that the federal government will not support any MA health care reform that increases eligibility to Medicaid (MassHealth), which was a central tenet of all of the House’s health care reform plan. John McDonough of Health Care for All quotes the SHNS article:
Legislative leaders on Tuesday said they have been told twice by US Health and Human Secretary Michael Leavitt in the last several weeks that the federal government will not accept a state plan to expand access to affordable health insurance if it includes an expansion of Medicaid, which presently serves nearly 1 million people in Massachusetts.
This really is a must-read — and it shows abundantly just how devastating Bush’s budget would be to our health care in Massachusetts.
How exactly does the Senate propose to increase access to coverage without Medicaid expansion? This shows how folks running for Governor, LG, or any legislative race need to be way out front on health care. This issue will not somehow go away after this year.
As was duly noted by Democrats during the SOTU address, the President’s frontal assault on Social Security was met with fierce resistance. Unfortunately it seems like the Bush administration has learned all too well from its mistakes.
<
p>
What we seem to be seeing with Medicaid is instead a death by 758 million cuts. So, from that standpoint, it does make some perverse sense not to expand a program that’s already being bled to death.
<
p>
The kicker for me is that these cuts are not only supposed to reduce the budget defecit, but are also being spun as the Federal government’s response to states’ requests for more flexibility in managing health care costs.
<
p>
(NPR’s Morning Edition had a piece on Medicaid cuts today.)
<
p>
Now I haven’t quite figured out how all this jibes with the President’s push for privatization and HSAs, but I’m sure there’s got to be more of a connection than the Federal government simply passing the buck (literally) on health care.
<
p>
The lesson to be learned from all this, I guess, is that when dealing with a snake, you’d better be careful what you ask for.
I’m sure we’ve all heard someone tell us:I vote for the man not the Party.
<
p>
It drives me nuts!
<
p>
Because THIS is what you get: a beloved program that HELPS people is under the gun. Example after example fits. Or should I say cut after cut.
<
p>
And those same people who voted”for the man” are the first to whine if the cut affects them.
<
p>
The Repugs are really good at getting unenrolled voters to buy their nice packaged candidates, who will, without fail, vote against the interests of the vast majority of people EVERY time.
<
p>
Tell me, what is your response to someone trotting out that old chestnut” Vote the man not the Party”?
… is the leadership vote. If you voted for Tom DeLay or Roy Blount or Bill Frist for Majority Leader, then you blew the most important single vote.
<
p>
For President, I do get the impression that folks vote for Celebrity-in-Chief. I don’t have a good answer to that, except that the Dems need better celebrities. đŸ™‚
why oh why were people building their healthcare reform proposals upon the expansion of medicaid when every signal out of washington was screaming towards the rollback of federal money for the program ?!?
<
p>
was this insincerity on the part of the medicaid/masshealth boosters? or are they really that profoundly politically tonedeaf ? listening to pat jehlen run for senate touting medicaid expansion as the panacea for our states healthcare crisis was like listening to someone who had just landed from another planet. yet there were plenty of people who thought that this idea was just wonderful and magical.
<
p>
our healthcare woes are going to have to be solved at a state level, because we ain’t getting nuthin from the republicans in power. ted k. can hold the line on huge cuts, but that is about it.
<
p>
so now that the feds are about to blow the legs out from under the hcfa/act/gbio proposal, what is plan b ?
Paging Dr. Kelley…. We have a health care proposal in critical condition. Please report to Beacon Hill with a proposal for universal coverage STAT.
FD, we’ve been around the block on this before. I concede ruefully that you were right about the Feds and expanding Medicaid — I didn’t think they’d be so blatant about it, but there it is. As far as “landing from another planet”, that’s what the single-payer folks sounded like to me.
<
p>
But whatever — this can’t become a circular firing squad. The question you pose is correct: What’s plan B? If you think we can raise the cash, and just as importantly, the political support and action for a just and ambitious expansion of coverage without Medicaid expansion, what does that look like?
<
p>
And in any event, this just became a major issue for the ’06 Governor campaign. Any expectation we had that this would somehow go away after this year is dashed — not that I ever believed that anyway.
How exactly does Massachusetts benefit by continuing to be part of the US?
<
p>
“When in the course of human events ….”
This is the typical right wing solution to the budget deficit. Cut spending on programs that help people. Why would we want to try to actually sit down and devise a plan on how to make the system more efficient? Just cut the funding and hurt people. Now just imagine this…
<
p>
A budget deficit swirling out of control, a military quagmire in Iraq, and then ANOTHER armed conflict in Iran (a WAY more formidable military adversary than Iraq could ever be).
<
p>
And BY THE WAY, I just left active military service ten months ago, and shortly thereafter received a letter informing me that the VA health benefits I THOUGHT I was entitled to were cut by the Bush administration to deal with the budget crisis!!!
<
p>
So just imagine what may be next.
this problem is a big one. and deeply rooted one. i would submit that we can together create a new, truly reformed healthcare system for the commonwealth if we are able to concoct the fine balance between idealism, cold hard numbers and political reality. all of these are necessary for the ends and dependant on one another.
all of the right-wing-conspiracy talk is not going to accomplish anything. nor is demanding to know every exacting detail of a new untested billion dollar program five years out ( refer to big dig [ x14 ] ). and we need to think pie in the sky a little ( refer to jfk-moon ).
one thing that would be really swell to include in a plan b is a cogent, balanced evaluation of the role of the insurance industry in the health of every human in massachusetts.
every plan put forth so far leaves the insurance industry absolutely unscathed. every other segment of the state is being asked to take some form of hit. but the insurance lobby? no way. not a scratch. is this the best we can do? is this really what we want?
is it really neccesary for every soul to hitch their wellbeing, and that of their kids, onto the muletrain that is the profit drive of the private insurers?
(oh, and don’t bother asking charles baker what his opinion is)
Let’s do something to overhaul this mess–you can be a part of making it happen by going to http://www.HealthCareForMass.org, endorisng the campaign, signing a postcard to legislators, and if you are so inspired-writing a letter in support (read some of the letters posted, they’re very powerful). fairdeal’s post about taking on the insurance industry makes sense-see http://www.MassCare.org for legislation that is premised on using our state’s healthcare dollars for healthcare instead of continuing the 40% (of every dollar!!) being diverted away from care for administration, marketing, and other uses that don’t help anyone’s health.
<
p>
We could spend the rest of our lives exposing the details of how wasteful, unfair and shamefully dysfunctional our “health care system” is, along with dissecting the intricate dynamics of politics and stakeholder interests that shape the statehouse and federal “reform” scenes. If you want to keep doing that (as I myself spend a lot of time on), fine, but I also ask you to also take action to help the Health Care Amendment Campaign secure its second needed ConCon vote on May 10, 2006 and then win the statewide vote on the Nov. ballot. This will put us on a path that LEGISLATORS WILL NOT BE ABLE TO STRAY FROM UNTIL EVERYONE HAS COMPREHENSIVE AFFORDABLE INSURANCE IN THE COMMONWEALTH
<
p>
Learn more and take action at http://www.HealthCareForMass.org
<
p>
FYI I am a nurse who helped launch this campaign over 3 years ago to establish a constitutional right to “comprehensive, affordable, equitabley financed health insurance coverage for all Massachusetts residents”. I have been moved to dedicate much of my life to this effort (while having 1yo and 5yo boys and a tiny bit of a balanced life), as have many other citizen activists, largely because of witnessing the tragic needless suffering of those without health insurance coupled with the incredible financial waste inherent in our current “system”.
<
p>
The voters of the Commonwealth are in a position to lead the way for our state and our nation as a whole to do the right thing and make health care a guaranteed right for all (and join the rest of the industrialized world) and tackle the interrelated issues of cost control, access to timely care, and quality. An intersting historical note: this 121st constitutional amendment will follow many years after Mass. was the first state to establish a constitutional right to K-12 public education, authored by John Adams. Please join the Health Care Amendment Campaign now.