If the latest Kaiser Family Foundation poll is a marker to judge by, Rep. Paul Ryan's assessment of Medicaid as "welfare" is a distinctly minority opinion. Via Suzy Khimm, the poll even surprised Drew Altman, president and CEO at KFF, finding that 59% of Americans say the program is important to them.
When we asked in our poll which programs the public was willing to see cut by Congress to reduce the deficit, no surprise, only 8% were willing to see "major reductions" in Social Security or Medicare. But only 13% were willing to see major reductions in Medicaid, the same percentage as for public education. Sixty-four percent supported "no reductions" at all in Social Security as a way to reduce the deficit, 56% in Medicare, and 47% in Medicaid, hardly the mark of an unpopular program. Forty-six percent of independents and a little more than a third (35%) of Republicans said they would "not support any reductions at all" in Medicaid to reduce the deficit. The findings about support for major reductions are noteworthy because policy proposals such as capping the rate of increase in spending on major health programs and some Medicaid block grant proposals made to reduce federal spending would almost certainly entail major cuts....
We got some clue about why Medicaid is more popular than the debate about the program might suggest from another question. Fifty-nine percent of the American people said Medicaid was either "very important" to them or their families (39%) or "somewhat important" (20%).
That's not confusion between Medicare and Medicaid tripping respondents up. They were asked specifically about Medicaid, "the government program that provides health insurance and long-term care to certain low-income adults and children." The explanation is how many families Medicaid benefits in one way or another, whether through having a parent or grandparent in long-term care thanks to the program, or a disabled child receiving extensive care. But those are the minority of beneficiaries.
The real reach, and value, of the program shows in times of economic distress. Like right now. Altman:
[W]ith Medicaid now touching 69.5 million Americans in 2011, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and many more over time as beneficiaries and their family members and friends move in and out of the program, a more likely explanation for the program's surprising support in our poll is simply that it has become more ingrained in the fabric of American life than has been generally realized. State programs rebranding Medicaid in more popular ways in several states may also have helped change the program’s image with the general public. Medicaid now covers nearly one in three children, with the recession driving many previously middle-income children onto the program, providing coverage their parents no doubt value.
So Ryan thinks a third of America's children are welfare queens. And that somehow, magically, taking healthcare away from them will solve the budget "crisis." The only crisis in the mind of Ryan, and presumably the entire GOP, is that people they consider undeserving receive government help.