Medicaid gloom predicted (Barf Alert)

Federal changes to Medicaid will mean deep cuts for Pennsylvania’s low-income patients, state welfare secretary says.

“This is a year of shared sacrifice. I think most of us have been calling it shared pain.” Estelle Richman Department of Public Welfare secretary

So if you’re a Medicaid patient, brace yourself for the pain – both to your body and to your wallet.

That was the message Friday from state Department of Public Welfare Secretary Estelle Richman, who painted a grim picture of Pennsylvania’s proposed 2005-06 welfare budget during a public forum at the Victoria Inns and Suites.

“This is a year of shared sacrifice,” Richman told the crowd of about 150 people. “I think most of us have been calling it shared pain.”

Using a detailed slide presentation with a mind-numbing array of statistics and financial data, Richman spent two hours explaining how billions of dollars of cuts in the federal Medicaid program will force dramatic benefit cuts to patients in Pennsylvania.

Some of the most significant cuts would be in the state’s medical assistance program, which uses Medicaid dollars to pay for health-care services to low-income women and children, the elderly and the disabled.

At $14 billion, the medical assistance program is the single largest expenditure in the state’s general fund budget.

Nearly 100,000 more people are expected to join the Medicaid rolls next year – a time when the federal government is slashing its Medicaid budget at unprecedented levels, Richman said.

“It is important to remember that we are in the middle of a health-care crisis in this country.”

Richman tried to highlight the few bright spots in this year’s budget plan, noting that no one would be cut from the state’s welfare rolls and no changes would be made in the range of health and social services available to children.

“On the adult side, we’ve done some pretty drastic things,” she said. “In many ways, I think these are devastating.”

The proposed budget includes new limits in benefits to adult medical assistance patients. For example, patients would be limited to six drug prescriptions per month; two inpatient hospital visits per year; one inpatient rehabilitation visit per year; and 18 doctor’s office or clinic visits per year.

Gov. Ed Rendell’s proposed budget now rests in the hands of the state legislature, which must pass a final budget by June 30.

Richman turned to the only local lawmaker in attendance, state Rep. Phyllis Mundy, D-Kingston, and asked her for help.

“Our hope is that you and your colleagues will be creative, as you look at this budget, and find solutions.”

After the presentation, Mundy said she shared Richman’s frustrations, and she didn’t dispute the facts. “She laid it all on the line.”

It’s widely expected that the medical assistance issue will dominate much of the budget negotiations this month in Harrisburg.

The Republicans, who control both houses of the state legislature, have already said they are unhappy with Rendell’s proposal, particularly with regard to the financial hit that hospitals and pharmacists would take.

“What the governor proposes to do would, I think, put hospitals in a deep crisis within a year,” said House Majority Leader Sam Smith, R-Jefferson.

He said he would prefer a plan that reduces the size and impact of the cuts, but spreads them to other areas within the welfare department.

Richman acknowledged that hospitals “took a lot of the hit,” but said more widespread cuts are not the right answer.

Mundy also criticized Smith and said his concern for the hospitals would be better served on the patients.

“It’s the patient who is going to suffer,” she said. “It’s about people. It’s not about the provider.”

Alright, I'll say this once and for all. When I started out in the world, I was barely making enough money to survive. My parents had an eighth grade education, and worked in restaurants, factories and farms all their lives. I'm a perfect candidate (theoretically) to be a Democratic voter.

What made the difference was that I got sick of always being broke and resenting those that had better jobs, lives, and incomes, and got the education necessary to lift me out of that trap. Did that in my thirties, and now I have a good lifestyle with money to spend, nice home, nice cars. That's what lifts people out of poverty - ambition, not government programs. I'm the living proof. And I have two words for any liberal who tries to tell me otherwise.

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