MEDICAID PROVIDES help in desperate times, but these are also potentially desperate times for Medicaid.
Pending House and Senate budget resolutions will probably include massive cuts to Medicaid, which will be bad medicine for Marylanders. It will hurt the most vulnerable within our population and harm the state's economy.
In 2000, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Medicaid provided needed health services for about 721,000 of Maryland's poor, of whom 66,000 were elderly, 398,000 were children and 104,000 were severely disabled. The remaining 153,000 are nondisabled adults. Many of Maryland's elderly who live in rural areas obtained access to health care only because of Medicaid.
Those now covered by Medicaid - children, people with disabilities and the elderly - should not be deserted. Surely, we can cut other areas of government spending that would not result in such unnecessary human misery. Medicaid has already reduced the number of uninsured.
Any cuts in Medicaid funding - given that Medicaid is already scraping the bottom of the barrel - will leave many more Marylanders uninsured.
In 2003, the Bush administration proposed cuts that would have caused thousands of Marylanders and other Americans to lose their health care coverage and become uninsured. The only reason the proposed drastic cuts to Medicaid didn't occur at that time was that the majority of governors, Democrats and Republicans alike, took a tough stand and advised Mr. Bush, Congress and the public of the dire consequences. As a result, Mr. Bush stopped the proposed cuts.
Medicaid provides a cushion to protect citizens and the economy. It provides medical help for the very poor and, for the poor elderly, pays for services that are not provided under Medicare, such as nursing homes, doctor visits, drugs and transportation for medical treatments.
The federal Department of Health and Human Services reports that Maryland's projected Medicaid spending will be $5.1 billion this year. Of this, the federal government will contribute $2.6 billion, with the state picking up the balance. Total Medicaid spending nationwide for this year is projected to be $324 billion, with the federal share $184 billion and the states' portion $140 billion.
The federal share of Medicaid outlays is expected to be about $192.6 billion for fiscal year 2006, which begins Oct. 1. The Bush administration has proposed cutting Medicaid by $45 billion over the next 10 years.
