States see Medicaid costs soar - but no mention of immigration

"Facing relentless fiscal pressure and exploding demand for government health care, virtually every state is making or considering substantial cuts in Medicaid, even as Democrats push to add 15 million people to the rolls." (New York Times, Feb 18)

Great. States are suffering from soaring Medicaid costs, and Obama wants to add another 15 million to the roles. Really smart.

"Concerns about health care costs are likely to dominate the winter meeting of the National Governors Association, which begins Saturday in Washington."

"In advance of the gathering, administration officials have urged governors to endorse President Obama’s health care proposals, or at least to avoid criticizing them. The Democratic plan, which is stalled in Congress, would vastly expand eligibility for Medicaid as one means of reducing the number of uninsured."

Governors are worried about rising costs, but Obama officials recommend they support Obamacare which would vastly expand eligibility and boost costs! Yep, really brilliant.

"But many governors said they were more concerned about the growth of existing health programs. The recession and high unemployment have driven up enrollment in Medicaid while depleting state revenues that help pay for it."

"A survey released Thursday by the Kaiser Family Foundation found a record one-year increase in Medicaid enrollment of 3.3 million from June 2008 to June 2009, a period when the unemployment rate rose by 4 percentage points. Total enrollment jumped 7.5 percent, to 46.9 million, and 13 states had double-digit increases."

As Robert Samuelson noted in a Dec 21, 2009 Washington Post op-ed piece:  "From 1999 to 2008, about 60 percent of the increase in the uninsured occurred among Hispanics. That was related to immigrants and their children."

So most of the increase in the uninsured is occuring among immigrants who will be lining up to take advantage of expanded Medicaid eligibility under Obamacare, pushing states to the brink of bankruptcy. Yet any mention of immigration in the NYT article? Nope, not a word.

"The National Association of State Medicaid Directors estimates that state budget shortfalls in the coming fiscal year, which begins in July in most states, will total $140 billion. Because Medicaid is one of the largest expenditures in every state budget, and one of the fastest-growing, it makes an unavoidable target."

State budget shortfalls in Medicaid will total $140 billion in the coming fiscal year!! And Obama wants to expand eligibility? Is he out of his mind? Oh, I'm sure the Dems will bribe states to support their health care plan by plugging state budget shortfalls with federal tax money. But can they do this ad infinitum? Just keep plowing the tax dollars of hard-working middle-class Americans into Medicaid to support the growing ranks of uninsured immigrants that the Dems and GOP elites insist we must keep inviting into the country?

That appears to be the plan. Indeed, that's how Obama and the Dems strong-armed the states into accepting their stimulus package which, by the way, prevents states from tightening eligibility standards for Medicaid:

"Governors and legislators have managed to defer the deepest cuts because the federal stimulus package provided $87 billion to states in Medicaid relief. The cost of Medicaid is shared by the federal and state governments, with states setting eligibility, benefit and reimbursement levels within broad federal guidelines, and Washington covering the majority of the expense."

"But the stimulus assistance is due to expire at the end of December, in the middle of many states’ fiscal years, leaving budget officials to peer over a precipice. Congress and the White House are considering extending the enhanced payments for six more months, at a cost of about $25 billion."

"The extension would not come close to filling the Medicaid gap in many states. In Georgia, for instance, Gov. Sonny Perdue assumed in his budget proposal that the additional federal money would be provided, but that the state would still face a Medicaid imbalance of $608 million, said Dr. Rhonda M. Medows, the commissioner of community health. "

States want to tighten eligibility, but the federal government has tied their hands:

"The options are limited by several realities. To qualify for Medicaid dollars provided in the stimulus package, states agreed not to tighten eligibility for low-income people. And any time a state cuts spending on Medicaid, it loses at least that much in federal matching money."

So states are damned if they do cut spending on Medicaid (because they lose federal assistance), and damned if they don't (because Medicaid costs are spiraling out of control and threatening to break their budgets).

When will white Americans and middle-class minorities wake up? Medicaid is already threatening to bankrupt the states, Obamacare promises to expand eligibility and make things worse, and yet no one in the mainstream media will even mention the word "immigration" when this is the primary factor behind rising costs. We're clearly incapable of dealing with serious problems because of taboos about immigration. I'm afraid things will have to get very worse before people wake up. 

How sad.