Monday, July 19, 2004
Controlling Medicaid costs must come before benefits expansion
[Robert Tanner, "Governors Grapple With Aging of America," Associated Press, The Wichita Eagle, 19 July 2004.]
A group of protesters in wheelchairs tried to convince state governors to make home-based care more accessible at the recent National Governors Association meeting. While home-based care can be more attractive than nursing home care, it is exactly this attractiveness that should give governors pause.
Making home care more readily available for those on Medicaid should be a long-term goal, but the priority must be on cost containment. Until Medicaid is returned to its original intent as a program for the truly needy, additional benefits should not be added. As it is, Medicaid is unsustainable and will soon require legislators to either cut other areas in the budget, raise taxes significantly, or both.
In a state with mounting debt, this is a time for narrowing the focus of entitlement programs, not trying to transform them into the solution for all of the problems in the health care system.
[Matthew Hisrich, Staying the Course: Medicaid Reform in Kansas, The Flint Hills Center for Public Policy, February 2004.]
[Robert Tanner, "Governors Grapple With Aging of America," Associated Press, The Wichita Eagle, 19 July 2004.]
A group of protesters in wheelchairs tried to convince state governors to make home-based care more accessible at the recent National Governors Association meeting. While home-based care can be more attractive than nursing home care, it is exactly this attractiveness that should give governors pause.
Making home care more readily available for those on Medicaid should be a long-term goal, but the priority must be on cost containment. Until Medicaid is returned to its original intent as a program for the truly needy, additional benefits should not be added. As it is, Medicaid is unsustainable and will soon require legislators to either cut other areas in the budget, raise taxes significantly, or both.
In a state with mounting debt, this is a time for narrowing the focus of entitlement programs, not trying to transform them into the solution for all of the problems in the health care system.
[Matthew Hisrich, Staying the Course: Medicaid Reform in Kansas, The Flint Hills Center for Public Policy, February 2004.]
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