Cost too high for Healthy Kids Initiative

by Greg Hinkle
| June 3, 2010 11:11 AM

I must respond to Judy Reall's letter in last week's Ledger chastising Representative Pat Ingraham's "no" vote on funding for the Healthy Kids Initiative (HB157 was the funding bill).

I am aware of all the "inside" details of the issues and funding for this Intiative because the bill was in the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Safety Committee.

I am a member of that committee. I think it would be beneficial to look at some little known history of the Intiative when it was a ballot measure.

We were told we had a $1 billion surplus. The fact is that within a week of the election the "surplus" was reduced to $700 million and continued to slide to the point of no surplus during the session.

Some of us knew the economy was in trouble then. We were told that Healthy Kids would cost $22 million. Not mentioned was the fact that it would cost an additional $75 million in Federal money.

This is key to the issue as you will see. We were told this was for uninsured kids. Well, at 250 percent of the poverty level a family of five could make $65,000 a year.

Many parents who make that much may be able to have their children insured. Many who have their children on private insurance would move them to the state program.

Removing the younger insured contributes to the increase in insurance premiums for the older age groups.

Feel free to call me and I will give the lengthy explantion why this occurs. This is one reason the same program went bankrupt in Hawaii and Maine.

Now, imagine if the voters had gone to the polls last November if they knew the following facts. There was no surplus funds and revenues were dropping like a rock, currently at a rate of around $20 million a month. The program would cost almost $100 million per year.

There would be 50 new state employees hired to recruit the alleged 30,000 uninsured kids. We were told a few months ago they couldn't find one tenth that many.

I wonder what these 50 employees are doing? Even if the Healthy Kids Initiative did not pass, the original CHIP program would have continued.

The only way to pay for this program is to take the money from somewhere else, such as K-12 education, nursing homes, the disabled, prisons, universities, senior citizens or wherever.

I would bet if the voters knew these facts, the outcome might have been different. Many voted for the Initiative with good intentions, but intiatives can not be funded by the voters. If there is no money, what is the legislature to do?

Now to what actually happened in the legislature. There were some of us who knew that state revenues were in serious decline and we were trying to figure out what was going to be cut to fund Healthy Kids.

We had the hearing on the bill on 03/09/09 and it sat in the committee for a month. Congress came to the rescue with the "stimulus" money.

The stimulus money could not be used to fund Healthy Kids so the $50 million to get the program stated was taken from Medicaid funding.

This is important to remember. The $50 million taken from Medicaid was back filled with $50 million in stimulus money. This is one time money. Now, where is the next legislature going to get the $50 million for Medicaid?

Much of Medicaid funding comes from the federal governemnt to the state. As I understand it, that federal funding will stop in January so the money can be used to fund the National Health Care system in 2014.

Where is the funding going to come from to keep it going? Since the funding was taken from Medicaid to fund Healthy Kids, HB157 was unneeded and the bill was tabled in our committee, thus killing the bill.

Representative Ingraham had knowledge of many of these issues and voted against the funding bill because the state just could not afford it. The next session is going to be a new experience in the fact that many programs will likely get the ax.

Do not believe the smoke and mirrors that the economy is leveling out. Revenues do not indictate that at all. Judy Reall attempts to paint Rep. Ingraham not representing the people of the district. She is looking out for the best interests of all the people, not a select group.

What I saw in Helena Democrats is no different from the tax and spend Democrats in Washington D.C. Democrats (and some Republicans) are spending this state and country into some sort of socialist nightmare.

As Margaret Thatcher stated, "Socialism works until you run out of other people's money."

We have run out of money. It is unfortunate that Judy Reall appears to be setting the tone of negative and misleading campaigning.

The people deserve the truth.

Senator Greg Hinkle