HOME | CONTACT | SITEMAP

Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, campaigning in Iowa and in response to a WFW activist’s question, recently described Medicaid’s practice of providing health coverage to all who qualify as “autopilot.” Pawlenty’s solution—which echoes House budget chair Paul Ryan’s radical prescription—is to provide for an arbitrary amount of Medicaid spending each year; once the money runs out, so does the health care.

What Pawlenty calls “autopilot” is what most people call serving the need that’s there.  Medicaid is the health care system for low-income families; it’s the final (and often inadequate) backstop for those with no where else to turn for medical coverage. During economic downturns like the current Great Recession, demand for the program increases; the way the system works now, the program grows to meet that greater demand.  Under Pawlenty’s plan, Medicaid would be unable to meet increased need: if you get sick after the money’s run out, tough luck.

Medicaid—and all vital social investment programs—should be put on a sound fiscal footing by securing adequate revenue for the federal government.  That means, among other things, restoring the tax rates of the 1990s for those making over a quarter million dollars a year; taxing wealth at least as much as work, instead of less, as we do now; and not letting profitable multinational corporations get away with paying no tax at all.  Also, reforms instituted by last year’s Affordable Care Act to bring down the rate of health-care inflation should be allowed to go forward, instead of—as Pawlenty demands—repealed.