FamiLIES USA and Medicaid “cuts”
May 3rd, 2008 | by admin |The essence of lying is the intent to deceive.
Families USA has issued a press release claiming that the Bush Administration’s FY2009 budget contains "cuts in federal Medicaid payments." Yet, as Linda Gorman points out at StateHouseCall.org (and in the Rocky Mountain News ), these "cuts" are merely reductions in how fast Medicaid’s budget will continue to grow:
tags: Colorado health care, Families USA, Linda Gorman, Medicaid…the Bush Administration has not proposed Medicaid budget cuts. Its FY 2009 budget proposal increases Medicaid spending by $12 to $13 billion over expected spending in FY 2008. This is in addition to FY 2005-2007 spending increases of about 10 percent. What the Bush Administration is proposing is a slightly smaller budget increase, about 7.1 percent rather than 7.4 percent. The 2009 budget numbers are available from the federal government here on page 61.
If Families USA and its fellow travelers were a real family making $50,000 a year, these budget numbers would be the equivalent of having an expected windfall of $53,700 reduced to $53,550. This small reduction in the rate of federal spending will, the people of Colorado are being told, cost Colorado “more than 3,500 jobs and an accompanying $135 million in wages,” a neat trick given that Colorado is not an entity and does not earn wages.
If a newspaper in your area reproduces this nonsense, perhaps it should be politely reminded Families USA is known for approaching health care with a well defined ideological slant and for producing lousy numbers on all manner of health care issues. It might also be asked to check before reproducing Families USA press releases as news.
