Rep. Young Comments On Speaker Pelosi’s Expansion of Medicaid
Washington,
Nov 4, 2009 -
Washington, D.C. – Alaskan Congressman Don Young released the following statement today after learning that H.R. 3962, Speaker Pelosi’s government takeover of health care bill, expands the currently broken Medicaid program while abolishing the successful State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP):
“As it currently stands, many states cannot afford their Medicaid program, which is why $90 billion to ‘bailout’ Medicaid was included in the so-called-stimulus package,” said Rep. Young. “H.R. 3961 contains an additional $23.5 billion and expands the program to approximately 15 million people, but the government will only pay for it through 2014. Have we not learned from No Child Left Behind how unfunded mandates can cripple a system?
“Additionally, Speaker Pelosi plans on phasing out the SCHIP program, a program that is working well to serve the neediest children in the State of Alaska (under the name Denali Kid Care), and moving SCHIP children to Medicaid. SCHIP covers children living up to 300% under the Federal Poverty Line while Medicaid’s new expansion only covers them up to 150%. Not to mention, Medicaid has a long history of poor access to care. If these changes go through, we aren’t only going to be letting children fall through the cracks, we’re going to practically be pushing them through.
“Medicaid itself needs reform, not more money thrown at it. Our health care system, in all of its parts, is broken, and instead of figuring out why and fixing it, we are throwing money we don’t have at the problem and hoping it goes away. Speaker Pelosi, you can’t patch a leaky pipe with a dollar bill and hope it makes the water stop running.”
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