An
article in the NY Times today reports on Jeb Bush's plan to infect Florida's Medicaid system with large-scale privatization. To my eyes, this looks like an attempt at advancing the national privatization front, even as Social Security "reform" is up in the air, and a stalking horse for Jeb's Presidential ambitions. Haven't seen this picked up yet in the blogosphere, so I'm crossposting from my discussion on my blog,
Reading A1.
Rick Lyman writes from Florida about the possibility of that state radically restructuring its Medicaid program, and it's a telling glimpse into our future:
America's governors, struggling for a grip on mounting Medicaid costs, are restricting access, squeezing providers and chipping away at services. But perhaps no one is proposing changes as far-reaching and fundamental as Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida.
Mr. Bush is proposing that the state's 2.1 million Medicaid recipients be allotted money to buy their own health care coverage from managed care organizations and other private medical networks. If enacted, the program would make Florida the first state to allow private companies, not the state, to decide the scope and extent of services to the elderly, the disabled and the poor, half of them children.
Sound like any other currently proposed social-spending overhaul you can think of?
The piece is workmanlike and evenhanded—which would sound like faint praise, but is not, in view of the Times' generally miserable track record in anything having to do with Jeb Bush—and does not shy away from justifiable use of the term "radical" to characterize the Florida proposal. (Nor does it shy away from use of the terms "private" or "privatization," even though it's clear that they're on the Republican proscription list, at least as regards the parallel Social Security, uh, reform. They're likely to be proscribed for Medicaid privatization, too; amusingly, Lyman reports that the Jeb plan is officially called "empowered care.") And though it comes late in the piece, Lyman is forthright enough to articulate the necessary critical context for what Jeb wants to do to Medicaid:
The far-reaching nature of the proposal is similar to ideas Republicans in Congress have put forward for Medicare and has led some critics to wonder whether Governor Bush is providing a preview of the kind of health care system President Bush would like to see nationwide.
"This is all part of the scheme of privatizing all of government," said Karen Woodall, a longtime Florida lobbyist for social services.
Even if the President Bush who ushers us into the paradise of national health care privatization turns out to be President Jeb rather than President Dubya. (Don't know about you, but I can't hardly wait for 2008!)
It'd be a real service if some enterprising reporter tried poking around at the network of think tanks and consultancies responsible for creating Jeb's Medicaid plan, looking for overlaps with the Social Security privatization apparat. What are the odds that this thing hasn't been coordinated at a high level within the national GOP, and that Medicaid privatization is not in fact a well-designed stalking horse for Jeb's Presidential ambitions?