[Republic If You Can Keep It]

Why is Tennessee in such dire fiscal straits? Is TennCare the whole problem?

I've read a number of these articles, but none seems to satisfactorily explain why Tennessee managed for 200 years without an income tax and now suddenly needs one.

If TennCare is indeed the whole story, why not cut it back? Is there no political courage to do so?

[vanna516]

TennCare is part of the problem. A recent audit revealed massive fraud and there has been until recently no legislative initiative to correct the problems. The average prescription per enrollee is either 16 or 18 - that really says a lot to the individual who is only one one. But from my understanding if you are on TennCare, physicians will write presciptions for aspirin so they don't have to pay for it. (This should really give people something to think about when it comes to the new federal legislation to add prescription to Medicare - this is really a slippery slope because once the benefits are given, an entitlement is created.) If I can find a quick link to highlight all the problems, I will post later.

But TennCare is not the only problem - the state has a massive spending problem. The Dept. of Safety's budget has increased 20% in 2 years.

[vanna516]

Here's a link to the audit that I was talking about: http://www.comptroller.state.t n.us/sa/reports/ag01102.pdf

Just skim the first part starting with page 5 to see just a few of the problems found with TennCare. Moreover, a number of these findings have repeated through the years and no legislative action to correct.

It's also important to know that a number of legislators have a financial in TennCare entities. GailA may be able to add some to this, but I think that Ford from Memphis is knee deep in this.