NC Medicaid "Enormously Successful"?
Published September 24, 2013
by Brian Balfour, Civitas Review Online, September 23, 2013.
One of Gov. McCrory's major initiatives from this past session centered around reforming North Carolina's Medicaid program. Dubbed the "Partnership for a Healthy North Carolina", the reform plan first requires a federal waiver to allow for flexibility to the program.
News about Medicaid reform, however, has been slow in coming. McCrory recently reminded viewers of NC Spin:
"There's one piece of legislation I got put in the budget that's a secret, don't tell anyone. We got permission to ask for that waiver," McCrory said, adding that the state needed more flexibility in how it managed the program.
As reported by WRAL, details of the reform plan have been slow to follow – perhaps due to the waiting period for the waiver.
What is puzzling is how defenders of the status quo amazingly try to spin the current Medicaid system as worth preserving.
"We're just enormously successful already and it seems silly to bring in companies that have problems in other states," said Adam Searing, a lawyer and public health expert who heads the liberal-leaning North Carolina Health Access Coalition.
Enormously successful?
What about the billions in cost overruns over the last few years, including half a billion that state budget writers had to find for the current fiscal year? What about the scathing audit of the system showing millions more in waste and mismanagement? How about a 42 percent rise in state Medicaid spending in just the last decade, or per enrollee costs shooting up by one-third in just eight years? What about the fact that the number of Medicaid patients have skyrocketed by 50 percent while the number of physicians accepting Medicaid patients decreased by 11 percent? What about Medicaid expenditures for children being 15th highest nationally and a whopping 27 percent higher than the average of our regional neighbors?
Reasonable people can disagree about what should be done with our state's Medicaid program, but to label the current system "enormously successful" is defies reality.
September 24, 2013 at 9:44 am
Norm Kelly says:
Brian is obviously a conservative. If he were a liberal, then the outcome would not be important. Liberal philosophy states that as long as the intentions were good, the program is considered enormously successful. If anyone seems to point out that the program is not meeting expectations, the liberal answer is that not enough money was spent on the program; if those darn conservatives would simply loosen the purse strings, liberals would be able to spend enough money to make the program work right/be successful.
Liberals don't look at the 'facts' (i did it again! some habits die hard. i'm trying to be more like a liberal, but that word just keeps creeping in. i swear it's the keyboard, not my fingers!) like cost overruns, millions in waste and mismanagement, or that physicians are no longer participating. That simply means not enough money is spent on the program yet, and when liberals get back in power, they will insure sufficient funds.
As for waste & mismanagement, again not a statement by a liberal. So long as it's a government program, there is no such thing as waste or mismanagement for liberals. As a matter of fact, the more dishonest the management is, the more liberals like to praise them, and possibly promote them to a higher position with more authority and more money in their budget. Mismanagement does NOT happen when liberals are in control. It's not possible.
When Brian comes to his senses, and realizes what misinformation he is putting forth, he'll get a real job at a real newspaper, like the N&O.
