You know when an election in Connecticut is over when virtually
all incumbent Democrats are re-elected to office, after having been fulsomely
endorsed by much of the state’s left of center media, and when, several days
after the election, bad news headlines begin to appear in Connecticut’s only state-wide newspaper:
“State’s Medicaid Costs Soar, Projected Budget Deficit Attributed In Part to
Expanded Coverage.” That headline appeared in a Hartford paper as a front page
above the fold story a little less than two weeks after the election.
According to the story, we discover that the state’s $365
million budget deficit “dates, in part, to two years ago when Connecticut
became the first state to expand medical coverage to low-income adults as an
early adopter of federal health care
reform.” The federal health care reform program is Obamacare. The
architects of Obamacare were careful to front load the program with alluring
benefits; payments for the alluring benefits were deferred until after the
election.
That would be – now.
Two years ago, Connecticut was plowing the field in
preparation for Obamacare. In 2010, we
discover from the story: “Connecticut had the largest percentage increase of
any state in Medicaid enrollment
among low-income adults — a 32 percent jump,” not an insignificant bump on the
spending Richter scale.
Governor Dannel Malloy’s budget hawk Ben Barnes, secretary
of the state's Office of Policy and Management, must have felt the tremors long
ago. Asked to account for the Malloy $365 million budget deficit – the governor
prefers to think of it as an easily backfilled “shortfall” – Mr. Barnes said, “The
number of people enrolled in that program has shot up.” He also notes, “One, the
economy has been poor. More people have been impoverished as a result of high
unemployment, things of that nature."
How long ago did Mr. Barnes sense the economy was
underperforming? Long, long ago. The economy was underperforming, President
Barack Obama never tires of reminding us, since the Bush recession; that would
be more than four years ago.
Under the enlightened leadership of Mr. Malloy, Connecticut had
been stuffing the state’s revenue sock since the governor presented his first
SEBAC inspired budget, which included a massive boost in taxes – the largest
increase, in fact, in the state’s history. And a new healthcare exchange was
inaugurated in the state long ago to prepare for Obamacare, promoted by
Democrats during their campaigns as a more prudent less expensive health care instrument.
Tilling the field for Obamacare, Connecticut shelved its old
heath care system, State Administered General Assistance (SAGA), and instituted
a new Medicaid Low Income Adult program (HUSKY Part D) in 2010. Under the old
system, SAGA serviced people from ages 21 to 64; under the new Medicaid Low
Income Adult program the eligibility age was lowered two years to19, thus increasing
the number of health care consumers. Under SAGA, benefits were extended only to
people who held less than $1,000 in assets, though beneficiaries were permitted
to own a home and a car worth $4,500 or less. As Mr. Barnes put it, “You could
essentially have one crummy, old car and no money in the bank, or a couple
hundred dollars in the bank, and still qualify. But if you had any assets at
all [apart from the crummy old car and a house] then you didn't qualify. You
had to spend down those assets on medical services before you were eligible.
So, that ruled some people out of eligibility."
Under the Obama-Malloy-Barnes new health care system, limits
on assets were eliminated – would Linda McMahon qualify? – benefits are more
“robust” (translation: more expensive) and the program kicks in at an earlier
age. These “improvements” necessarily increase the cost of the program. Connecticut has not yet received from Washington
a waiver filed last summer that would impose a $10,000 asset eligibility test for
the Medicaid program for low-income adults, and the federal government, currently
reimbursing Connecticut for 50 percent of the program, will not reimburse the state
fully under the Affordable Care Act until 2014.
Why then, should anyone be surprised that the new Medicaid
Low Income Adult program has kicked a hole in Connecticut’s budget bucket?
The post-election story in the Hartford paper helpfully
provided the relevant statistics: “In two years, Medicaid enrollment by
low-income adults has grown from fewer than 50,000 to more than 83,000, greatly
outpacing the state's expectations, according to state figures. Total Medicaid
enrollment was 588,488 at the end of the last fiscal year in June, up 13,676 in
a year.”
Surely the state figures were available to both Mr. Malloy
and Mr. Barnes. Two years is 730 days, a little less than 105 weeks, 8,760
hours in which to ponder projected costs, Mr. Barnes’ specialty.
Here is the truth: Everybody knew, much before the
elections, that Obamacare would cost the states millions of dollars. Mr. Obama
knew, Mr. Malloy knew, Mr. Barnes knew, all the Democrats in both national and
state legislatures knew, publishers of newspapers knew, newspaper editors who
endorsed here in Connecticut every single incumbent Democrat in the state’s
congressional delegation knew, every incumbent Democrat in Connecticut
congressional delegation knew. Everyone but voters -- prior to the election -- knew
that Connecticut was marching lemming-like towards the edge of a fiscal cliff,
piped in that direction by sweet talking politicians with more curves in their
courses than a slinky.
And now -- after all Connecticut incumbent Democrats have
been tucked into their comfortable sinecures -- the rest of us are, at long
last, permitted to know.
Should a media that allows itself to be so misused any
longer be permitted to call itself free – or even useful?
Comments
Of course this was the time when the COurant Editorial page was dominated by urban design.
Today there is no one in the dailies to care about the budget except to identify who got the most pork