For the past few months, Social Security cant and rant has engulfed the political discussion. Republicans continue to eulogize private accounts as the savior to the Social Security problem, while Democrats ? not providing an alternative solution to these problems --- remain in a denial stage, maintaining the position that the obstacle does not exist and will not exist for a while.
Social Security obviously needs immediate reform, but private accounts will not effectively address its problems. However, as much as it is an issue, Capitol Hill must address a more pressuring issue with the depleting Medicaid system.
President Bush has consistently proposed budget cuts --- aimed at potentially shaving $60 billion off the budget over the next decade --- that fail to address the entirety of the problem.
Medicaid, the healthcare program for the poor that is financed jointly by the federal government and the states, has felt the drain of an aging population.
With Bush's pension reform "floundering," Medicaid will likely be this year's "consummate budget battle," "The Economist" reported.
Originally enacted in 1965 with the hope of providing healthcare to the poor, Medicaid, with a total cost topping $320 billion, is currently alongside Medicare, the United States' biggest government healthcare program. Uncle Sam covers between 50 and 77 percent of the tab, depending on how poor a state is. On average, the government pays 57 cents of every dollar Medicaid spends, "The Economist" reported.
The problem of increasing Medicaid spending (up 63 percent in the past five years) will not vanish until the government addresses the fundamental problems within the Medicaid system and the entire healthcare system.
States have constantly been accused of inflating and manipulating their Medicaid budgets to acquire more federal money. With what has been deemed "creative accounting," Bush continues to propose more flexibility for states with the construction of their Medicaid system but not at any higher expense to the federal government.
The White House also continues to breeze lightly over the money wasted in frauds, scandals and the undisclosed expenditures of states.
Addressing such issues, Bush needs to take a harder stance against the problems of the system. With the creative accounting, the White House needs to find a way to audit the inflated and manipulated budgets of the states, even going as far as implementing fines on the state for fraudulent practices.
However, the money retained through the fines should go towards funding Medicaid in a non-offending state. In addition, the money that could be recovered from the dissolution of such fraudulent practices could help cover the needs of these states. And it can be expected the states will ensure that such practices do not occur again unless they can afford such hefty fines (which many states surely cannot).
With false claims, fraud and waste that drains an already weighted system, the White House should require states to heavily fine and punish the perpetrators of such violations.
As much as these two proposals appear sufficient and appeasing, they fail to address the biggest problem with the entire healthcare system: the price inflation employed to gain high profit margins and fill the greedy hands of pharmaceutical companies.
The rising cost of medication is not the result of research and development as maintained by many companies, because as statistics continually show, the majority of research is actually funded by the government.
If the White House willingly accepts my proposals (a vain assumption), one can only hope that the White House does so while at the same time pressuring greedy pharmaceutical companies to focus on saving lives and not their pockets.
Kurt Davis is a Cavalier Daily Health & Sexuality columnist. He can be reached at kurt@cavalierdaily.com.
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