Better care for fewer citizens is not the answer
By State Sen. Pat Dougherty
State Rep. Margaret Donnelly
State Sen. Rita Heard Days
State Rep. Yaphett El-Amin
Guest columnists
The start of a new year always gives rise to the hope that next 365 days will be better than the last. That hope, however, is also tinged with uncertainty as to what the future holds.
When the Missouri Medicaid Reform Commission this summer began studying how to improve the program, the Democratic lawmakers on the panel were hopeful of producing recommendations to provide a better health care system for all Missourians and address the rising number of working uninsured.
Unfortunately, the final report endorsed by the commission’s Republican majority fails in that regard. For that reason, we could not in good conscience join our Republican colleagues in endorsing it.
Although the report contains some positive recommendations, such as putting an emphasis on prevention and improving delivery of care through technology, overall it proposes additional and unwarranted barriers for the more than 900,000 Missourians who rely on Medicaid for health care.
During the 2005 legislative session, Republican-sought statutory changes and budget reductions booted nearly 100,000 poor, elderly and disabled Missourians off Medicaid health care. The report fails to quantify what the alleged savings might be from these cuts or whether the human toll is too high to justify them.
And it offers no solution for undoing the damage caused by the cuts. If the Missouri General Assembly adopts the commission majority’s recommendations in the 2006 session, it is unknown how many more people would join the ever-expanding number of Missourians who have lack coverage.
The action of cancelling public hearings in rural Missouri denied outstate folks who lack the ability to travel to Jefferson City the opportunity to be heard. Democratic members independently held hearings outstate in which the human side of the equation was presented.
The majority’s apparent philosophy is that the state should provide better care to fewer people. We need not fall into that trap, however, and must strive to improve access to medical services for all, which was a stated goal of the commission.
Fortunately, lawmakers are not bound by the commission’s recommendations and are free to pursue meaningful reform that improves Missouri’s health care system. Instead of achieving savings by denying care, the legislature should find savings by cracking down on the handful of unscrupulous providers who defraud the system. In addition, the legislature could find real savings by working to reduce prescription drug costs.
As elected officials, it is our duty in the New Year to provide Missouri with the quality public health system that its citizens demand and deserve.