Medicaid Maladies
Some newspapers in North Carolina would have one think that a reorganization of the wasteful policies of Medicaid would “imperil health care for the poor.” Actually, nothing could be farther from the truth. Medicaid is a wasteful raft of policies that have little restrictions on the use of taxpayer money to pay for every ailment and procedure a poor person with nothing better to do can think up.
But not according to the editorial writers in Fayetteville, who obviously don’t know anything about the program except for the typical socialist cliche of ‘it’s not enough’. While accusing the General Assembly of trying to “soak poor children, the ill and the elderly,” they omit that it is impossible to “soak” someone whose every dime is given to them. That’s exactly like saying ‘if you’ve been donating $1,000 per year to United Way but only give $900 this year, you’re soaking United Way’. Yet this passes for thinking among supporters of an ever larger, more invasive government.
These are the same voices who cry ‘don’t cut spending’ when the only cut is to the wishful request for more. By way of classic example: if politicians and bureaucrats are coming off a budget of $100,000,000 last year, and this year request $150,000,000 but nab ‘only’ $130,000,000, supporters cry about cuts to the budget, even though it has increased 30% over the previous year.
The truth is Medicaid is well funded and will continue to be, even if restructuring reduces the cost to the taxpayer. Poor people will still get more and better medical treatment than many of those who pay their bills. The fact is Medicaid – more accurately, taxpayers – pay the medical bills of poor people, who can go to the emergency room or visit a doctor or fill a prescription or have an operation and pay not a single dime; they have no co-pay. If there is a medical insurance policy available without a single co-pay requirement, I’m not aware of it.
And for people without an insurance policy who make too much money to be considered poor and on Medicaid, the bill is worse. And that is one of the reasons our country has economic problems today. So while the writers of the editorial advocate more spending by people who work for people who don’t, the writers obviously don’t have a clue about reality or, if they do, don’t care.
How and why did we decide medical care is a right? Not just a right, but something that should be funded to everyone who can’t afford it for themselves by those who have a difficult time paying for the health of their own families. This is an economic travesty and a distortion of how society should function.
This distortion of our society and our economy is made clear by the four things Medicaid does. It takes money from those who work and gives it to government bureaucrats to spend on others. So 1: It pays for government bureaucrats, which is a welfare program. The money spent is for the medical care of poor people. So 2: It pays for poor people, another welfare program. Then there are the doctors, nurses, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies who get paid for work they wouldn’t do without the payments. So 3: The medical industrial complex is another welfare recipient. Most important are the people who are poorer for all this. So 4: The taxpayers get fleeced, soaked, chiseled, conned and hustled to pay these others.
As a society, we should help others. But Medicaid and similar programs are not necessarily the only or best way to do that. In fact Medicaid needs an extensive rework simply because it is fraught with waste. Processes, restrictions, programs, qualifications and allowed medical procedures are but a few of the things that need reexamining. If our General Assembly can help the poor while reducing the costs to the taxpayer, while reducing waste by restricting the opportunity for waste, then our representatives need all the support we can give them.
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