Several Recent Editorials, Opinion Pieces Discuss Economic Stimulus Package

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 09 Jan 2009 - 3:00 PDT

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Several recent editorials and opinion pieces recently addressed an economic stimulus package under consideration by Congress and President-elect Barack Obama. Summaries appear below.

Editorials

• Akron Beacon Journal: "The leading spending priority" for the economic stimulus package "must be money for states struggling with requirements to balance their budgets," a Beacon Journal editorial states. The editorial adds, "The federal government has the tools to offset the dampening effect of such mandated fiscal discipline, targeting money for Medicaid, unemployment compensation, food stamps and other elements of the safety net" (Akron Beacon Journal, 1/7).
  
  
• Denver Post: "Slowing down the pace just a notch" on the expected completion of the economic stimulus package from Jan. 20 to mid-February "is a wise move, one that is almost certainly designed to give everyone ... a chance to understand, and perhaps get on board with" it, a Denver Post editorial states. The "chosen projects" included in the stimulus package "must make a difference," the editorial states, adding, "Medicaid assistance to states has to be constructed in a way to help the nation's safety net institutions take care of the growing number of people who've lost their jobs and health insurance" (Denver Post, 1/7).
  
  
• Detroit News: "If Congress agrees to take on this enormous debt in the name of stimulating the economy, it better do everything possible to keep it from becoming history's biggest pork barrel," a News editorial states. According to the editorial, Obama has proposed a number of needed provisions, such as "helping states meet unemployment insurance and Medicaid obligations," but the "hundreds of billions of dollars he wants for infrastructure projects could wind up as the biggest boondoggle since the Hurricane Katrina relief project" (Detroit News, 1/7).
  
  
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Proposals by Democrats to extend unemployment benefits and allow certain unemployed workers to become eligible for Medicaid as part of the economic stimulus package "have merit as emergency measures, as long as Congress draws a bright line to demark how they would be phased out once the crisis passes," a Journal Sentinel editorial states. "Any expansion of Medicaid shouldn't take the place of real health care reform that aims to control costs and ensure universal coverage," according to the editorial (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 1/6).
  
  
• St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "The ideal stimulus package would meet a Three-T test: Spending would be 'timely, targeted and temporary,'" a Post-Dispatch editorial states. The stimulus package should include provisions such as "increasing unemployment compensation, food stamp payments and grants to governments that are struggling to provide their residents with essential local services," in which "spending can be accounted for relatively easily," the editorial states, adding, "Tax cuts, on the other hand, might not be nearly as effective" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1/7).
  
  
• Washington Post: The economic stimulus package "must not bloat the government's permanent financial commitments," in part because, in the long term, "investors will finance the U.S. government at reasonable rates only if it tackles its huge unfunded health care and pension commitments," a Washington Post editorial states. "Unchecked, the cost of providing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to 77 million retiring baby boomers could push the debt-to-GDP ratio" to almost 300% by 2050, according to a report recently released by the Congressional Budget Office, the editorial states. The editorial concludes, "Hard as it is, jump-starting the U.S. economy will be easy compared with securing its financial future," but "Obama and the Congress must do both" (Washington Post, 1/8).

Opinion Pieces

• Alfred Smith/Henry Amoroso, Albany Times Union: "If Congress does not act" to increase the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage for state Medicaid programs, "states will be forced to make draconian cuts affecting hospitals, nursing homes, homes care agencies and many other areas of health care," Smith, chair of the board of St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers, and Amoroso, president of St. Vincent, write in a Times-Union opinion piece. They add, "Increasing FMAP reimbursement is a reasoned and careful response to an emergency situation and one that has been used before." In addition, they write that Congress "can block or reverse other changes in Medicaid that will cut hundreds of millions of dollars to hospitals throughout the nation" (Smith/Amoroso, Albany Times Union, 1/8).
  
  
• Scott Gottlieb, Wall Street Journal: Medicaid "beats being uninsured" but often "relegates the poor to inferior care," and state programs likely will "receive a bolus of federal money ... with no obligation that the program does anything to reverse its decline," American Enterprise Institute resident fellow and former senior CMS official Gottlieb writes in a Journal opinion piece. He writes, "Insurance coverage has become the end itself, with states spreading resources widely but thinly -- without enough attention to the quality of care, accessibility, or whether coverage was actually improving health," adding, "States have no obligation to rigorously measure health outcomes in order to qualify for more federal money." According to Gottlieb, additional funds alone "won't fix the program's woes" and "will simply allow states to siphon off more of what they would have spent on Medicaid to other uses." Gottlieb writes, "The troubling evidence about the quality of Medicaid patients' services is a cautionary tale for Mr. Obama as he sets about to administer more of our health care inside government agencies," adding, "Turning Medicaid around should be the least we demand before turning over more of our private health care market to similar government management" (Gottlieb, Wall Street Journal, 1/8).
  
  
• Cal Thomas, Washington Times: "Like pigs waiting in line to get their snouts in the feeding trough, come many of the nation's governors" who "want Washington to pony up $1 trillion for their absolutely-essential-non-negotiable-if-we-don't-get-the money-people-will-starve programs," such as Medicaid, syndicated columnist Thomas writes in a Times opinion piece. He writes, "New York Gov. David Paterson (D) claims that, because tax revenues have plunged, 43 states now have deficits totaling around $100 billion," adding, "No, those states have deficits because when times were good and the money was rolling in they thought they could get away with endless new programs, while putting little or no money aside for the inevitable rainy day." According to Thomas, the "governors' request for more money from Washington is also about unfunded mandates, the rising cost of Medicare and Medicaid and a lot of other 'entitlement' programs that could have been made solvent during the Bush administration, which tried, but was unable to succeed due to opposition from Democrats who preferred to have an issue rather than a solution." Thomas concludes, "If this growing dependence on ever more costly and overreaching government continues, we may have to change the familiar letter abbreviation for this country from USA to ATM" (Thomas, Washington Times, 1/7).

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