Rick Perry has lost his mind. He's gone off the rails, off the ranch, off his rocker, something. How else does one explain Perry joining hands with Newt Gingrich and announcing to the world, Texas, the state with the most uninsured Americans--Needs to lead health care reform.
Huffpo, via the Washington Post is running a piece written by Perry and Gingrich in which they extol on the glorious works of wonder the state government in Texas has done in regards to health care. Just one problem...I live here. I have yet to see any of the glorious works of wonder, but according the GOP duo, we're doing great down here what with tort reform and charities kicking in.
Texas, for example, has adopted approaches to controlling health-care costs while improving choice, advancing quality of care and expanding coverage. Consider the successful 2003 tort reform. Fewer frivolous lawsuits have attracted record numbers of doctors to the state as medical malpractice insurance premiums dropped by half. Christus Health, a large Catholic nonprofit system with a significant presence in Texas, spent about $100 million on liability defense payments in 2003. Last year, Christus spent $2.3 million on such payments. Much of that savings has gone into expanding health-care services in low-income neighborhoods.
How about that..Save for the part where he forgets to mention all that charity help is overwhelmed and begging for funding and turning folks away, is set at standards either at or below the poverty line and it certainly is not widely available. If you're middle class and uninsured, the only options you have are don't get sick, or if you do get sick, go to the hospital--Where they'll put a band aide on your problem and hustle you out the door ASAP.
Under Perry Texas tried to privatize all social service programs. It was a disaster, with one of the results being a food stamp program that doesn't work leaving hungry families all over the state of Texas. So, yeah Texas led the way on that one, and became the textbook example of what can go wrong when you try to privatize government programs. The bottom line of private corps becomes far more important than delivering services to those in need. (I wrote a diary about that a while back, listing sources and info)
The article is geared to scare up fear about Medicaid, an effort to frighten the poor and disabled on the Medicaid rolls. That's it. Perry knows full well the greatest percentage of Texans without health insurance don't qualify for Medicaid because of the income/asset requirement.
Congress is proposing a series of additional subsidies to states to cover 90 percent of the costs of the newly mandated populations. In true Washington form, these handouts would be debt-financed, through the generosity of foreign bankers, to be paid back by future generations of American taxpayers.
Of course, they just have to and prove they're fiscal hounds, they're watching every dollar and trying to help out the uninsured folks in America....
We note with concern that the Government Accountability Office reported in January that Medicaid made an estimated $32.7 billion in improper payments in 2007, equal to a full 10 percent of the program. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) pointed out that the average improper payment rate for non-health government programs is 3.9 percent. He introduced an amendment in the Senate Finance Committee that would have prevented expansions of Medicaid until the secretary of health and human services could certify that its improper payment rate was equivalent to that of non-health programs, but that amendment failed on a party-line vote. The rate of improper payments needs to be addressed.
Putting a hold on all Medicaid payments would literally endanger the lives of Americans. The bills in front of Congress right now have provisions to create better controls over waste and fraud. It was nothing new, John Cornyn knows it too.
I hope the next election cycle delivers us from this fool...Gilbert, Schieffer, hell I'll even think about taking a shot at Kinky if it means Rick Perry will put on his empty ten gallon hat and ride off into the sunset...I don't care where he goes...Just so long as he goes.
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