Editorial: Barbour coming up with another plan
Posted: 08/01/08 - 11:27:34 am CDT
Gov. Haley Barbour says he’s coming up with a new plan to address Medicaid funding woes in Mississippi.
He has provided no specific details, saying he will announce the new plan Monday before the Legislature reconvenes in special session.
Let’s hope Barbour proposes something palatable enough for House Democrats to swallow and that it won’t cut sorely needed medical services in this state.
That’s a tall order, though, considering the animosity between the House leadership and Barbour and the inability of leaders of the Senate and the House to cobble any sort of compromise on the issue.
What Barbour and lawmakers alike should be figuring out is not how easily to make cuts in the program but how to make no cuts at all.
One way Barbour probably could get the House to agree on a funding plan that wouldn’t cut services would be to simply yield on the cigarette tax and allow lawmakers in the special session to consider raising it.
This isn’t to suggest that a modest raise in the nation’s third lowest cigarette tax would fund the deficit. It wouldn’t. But the House likely would be willing to compromise and enact Barbour’s hospital bed tax to fund whatever else is needed.
Or Barbour could, as has been suggested, merely postpone any Medicaid cuts until January and let the issue be considered in the next regular session.
It’ll be interesting to see what he proposes Monday. He says his administration has been in touch with the federal officials who oversee Medicaid . “We are working together on a way to make the required cuts and not hurt the health care system nearly as much as Medicaid’s original plan, which was proposed on July 11,” Barbour said in a speech at the Neshoba County Fair Thursday.
We reiterate. He and the Legislature must come up with a plan that won’t hurt the health care system at all. It is too important not only for the health and welfare of a large segment of the state’s population but for local economies as well.
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