Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons orders study of possible Medicaid pullout

[highplainsdem]

http://www.lvrj.com/news/breaking_news/Gibbons-orders-study-of-possible-Medicaid-pullout-81619457.html

CARSON CITY — Gov. Jim Gibbons has asked staff members to explore whether the state can drop out of the Medicaid program that provides free health care to more than 233,000 Nevadans.

A Gibbons spokesman said today that because of the bad economy, the state can no longer cover most Medicaid recipients, even though the federal government provides most of the funding. He said things will only get worse if Congress approves the health care bill.

-snip-

A conservative Las Vegas-based think tank the idea could save the state money and suggested that the state’s poor probably would be better off without Medicaid.

But legislative leaders said Gibbons’ idea would not receive their approval, which might be required. And a nonpartisan policy research group that watchdogs Congress said dumping Medicaid would leave many Nevadans without health care.

Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, questioned whether the governor’s talk about ending Medicaid was serious or an attempt to improve his re-election chances.

-snip-

Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, doubts pulling Nevada out of Medicaid is “workable.” Raggio said he has been told that Gibbons is only doing an analysis to determine what cost savings would result if the state rejected federal Medicaid dollars.

If Nevada stopped taking the money, then Raggio said only about one-third of the current Medicaid recipients would continue to receive care.

A spokesman for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who guided the health care bill through the Senate,

said Gibbons does not understand the ramifications of pulling out of Medicaid.

“By dropping out of Medicaid, he would only increase the number of uninsured in Nevada, which increases the number of people going to the emergency room for treatment, which is then paid for by taxpayers,” Reid spokesman Jon Summers said.

-snip-

Geoffrey Lawrence, a fiscal policy analyst for the Nevada Policy Research Institute, the conservative think tank, said opting out of Medicaid would not result in thousands of Nevadans going without health care, or leaving unpaid bills at emergency rooms.

Under provisions of the Senate-approved bill, residents without health care could receive federal subsidies to allow them to purchase private health care policies, he said.

But Judith Solomon of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C., said the subsidies still would be too expensive for most poor people to pay. Dropping Medicaid would lead to even more people going without health insurance, she predicted.

-snip-

Burns said Gibbons is talking with lawyers to determine whether he can pull Nevada out of Medicaid on his own, or would need approval of legislators during a special session.

[ellie]

1. Another compassionate conservative!

[msongs]

2. America prefers to spend its money on wars and the military nt

[hadrons]

3. Sad to say, I'm sure SOME Medicaid recipients would still vote for Gibbons ...

[jwirr]

4. Does Nevada have nursing homes? Medicaid is the government

program that pays for nursing homes after the first 180 days. This man is an idiot.

[laughingliberal]

5. This guy is such a disaster

He's not likely to win his reelection in November but he seems to be determined to destroy us before we can get rid of him. We're probably going to wind up with another effing Republican but, hopefully, not one as bad as he is. I don't think there are any much worse than him.

[Alias Dictus Tyrant]

6. I don't know about the economics of Medicaid...

...but there are several cases (such as Federal highway funds) where there is substantial evidence that the States could save money while delivering comparable service even compensating for the Federal tax loss if they stopped sucking on the Federal teat. It isn't just Nevada, a number of economic studies have been done across a diverse range of states (both Red and Blue) over the years that suggest this. Usually, the Feds bribe States with "free money" to bring them back into line whenever they start thinking about this.

Nevada is somewhat of a special case in that they are probably the state most likely to discard the Federal strings. They came within a single vote of dropping all Federal highway funds (with the vast number of regulations attached, many practically functionless and expensive) and going it alone in the past, easy for Nevada because their roads are already paid for entirely by gas and use taxes. On an academic level, I would be curious to see an equivalent study of costs for Medicaid. In many cases, the individual states can be less stupid about implementation than the Federal government simply due to their greater power to implement such things and the feedback loop being much tighter.