Skip to main content

Another laugher: State officials surprised Feds are shafting them on Medicaid costs

Again this would be amusing if it hadn't been predictable:

Delaware taxpayers appear to be on the hook for millions more in Medicaid spending next year, despite Gov. Jack Markell’s plan to expand access to the program under the Affordable Care Act that was intended to save the state money. 
Officials in Markell’s administration say they were surprised this fall when the federal government signaled it would shift some Medicaid costs back to the state. The move was triggered by a technical change in the way federal economists calculate personal income, and could cost the state an unexpected $25 million.
Some days I give the WNJ's Jonathan Starkey crap, but today he perfectly captures the unintentional irony of Rita Landgraf's comments:
“There’s nothing wrong with what the federal government did,” Landgraf said. “It’s just that it was terribly unfair . . ." 
I'm not sure who really believed that (A) adding 20,000-30,000 people to the 215,000 people in Delaware already on Medicaid wasn't going to cost more; or that (B) the cash-strapped Feds weren't going to look for a way to shift more of the expense downward.  Nobody's repealed the law of gravity recently.

Here's the thing:  the Feds are basically telling Delaware that it will have to pick up about an additional $1,000 per person for the new enrollees.  That, of course, occurs at a time when DEFAC predicts a budget shortfall of about $13 million against baseline spending.  So our next General Assembly will face some interesting choices.  Do we continue to pass out tens of millions of dollars in corporate welfare each year?  Do we continue to bail out casinos?  Do we continue to fund a bloated "homeland security" apparatus that spies on Delaware citizens and otherwise delivers very little in the way of additional security, for--say--the citizens of Wilmington?

Or do we start hearing from our Senators and Representatives that we need new taxes?

Ironically, one of the answers is staring them in the face if they would only look at it:  follow Colorado's example and legalize marijuana, then tax it.  Presto! New revenue stream, and--unlike casinos--it's very damn unlikely that New Jersey, Pennsylvania, or Maryland will be following suit anytime soon.

Not the mention the benefits of lowering prison costs, cutting out a major motivator for urban crime by undercutting gang economics, and treating people with serious drug problems as patients rather than criminals.

Oh, and we could fund Medicaid, too.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I knew it was coming, although I didn't know it would happen this soon. Secretary Landgraf has made it clear that the Markell Administration was caught off guard with the accelerated quantitative easing. Lt. Gov. Denn mentioned in that debate way back with Sher Valenzuela that one of the biggest reasons why we accepted the Medicaid expansion was that the Federal Government agreed to pay for it. In the same breath he also left room for maneuvering. Should there be a pullback in temporary funds to the extent of causing significant budgetary problems, he essentially said Delaware would have to reconsider its participation in the Medicaid expansion.

Popular posts from this blog

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here:  chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society  [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.”   The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...

A reply to Salon's R. J. Eskrow, and his 11 stupid questions about Libertarians

Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point:  Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo:  Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1.       Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...