Those were Governor Nikki Haley’s comments
last week in regard to a new healthcare pilot project to start next year
for the 18,000 employees of the Medical University of South Carolina. Employees will choose from all the primary
care doctors of MUSC for their medical home.
The employees will even have case managers to help them get the
healthcare they need.
In addition to possibly better healthcare, the State
Budget and Control Board voted to support the project in order to hold down
healthcare costs for the employees and the state.
Said Haley, “If you focus in those two (primary and
preventive care), it should be very effective.”
Too bad the Governor doesn’t want to provide primary
and preventative healthcare to approximately 200,000 low income uninsured South
Carolinians. That’s how many who do not
qualify for the state’s current Medicaid program but won’t earn enough to
qualify for premium assistance in the new health insurance marketplace that
opens October 1st. Abandoned
by the state of South Carolina, they will just continue to be uninsured while
those with less income and those with more will receive insurance with the help
of government.
Tony Keck, who runs the state’s Medicaid program, told
the New York Times that, “Our mission is to purchase the most health for
our citizens in need, at the least possible cost to the taxpayer.”
For those 200,000 uninsured citizens, the Governor
and our Legislature have decided that the least possible cost for their
healthcare needs is zero; simply don’t offer them health insurance. But they could have also spent nothing and
provided health insurance.
The feds were willing to pay 100% to put these low
income citizens on Medicaid for three years.
Had we done that, these uninsured would have had primary and
preventative healthcare and we would have reduced the cost-shifting for
uncompensated medical care that causes premiums for the insured to go up. But that would have required our rabidly
partisan government officials to agree that these 200,000 citizens were worthy
of good healthcare at zero South Carolina taxpayer-cost under Obamacare.
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According to the DMSoB study, this would be cost neutral. ($650million in cost, but addtional tax revenue from the economic impact would be about the same). I guess it just depends on if you beleive in the economic impact from expanding as far as State revenue goes. But where is the $11 billion in FED dollars coming from? I think that is the real question. I am all for it, but I don't see how it can sustain itself. Like the federal PCIP and CLASS. Any light you can shed on this?
ReplyDeleteActually that study projects that if the state expanded Medicaid, by 2020 the state would net an extra $9 million for the reasons you state. According to the CBO Obamacare is revenue neutral and even saves the U.S. taxpayers money due to reducing waste and fraud, spurring economic activity and the levying of new taxes on insurance carriers. From South Carolina's perspective, the money we don't accept will go somewhere else because the dollars have already been allocated at the federal level. Any program is sustainable if we put it as a high priority. The issue then is federal revenue compared to federal spending. With a growing economy the federal debt as a percentage of GDP is shrinking and most economist believe that the debt is sustainable and in fact is necessary for investing in job creation and moving the economy forward. Many family households and big businesses carry debt. The country can operate in the same prudent way.
DeleteSo, thats $11.650,000,000 total cost to cover 200,000 people who may or may not need coverage, over the next 6 years. That comes to about $809 per individual per month. Is that correct? Seems a bit high when the average individual plans in the exchange, from what I have read, are about half that.
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