Americans are known to be the most giving people on earth. Last year individuals, corporations and foundations donated an estimated $303 billion in charitable contributions – including nearly $9 billion in international aid.
Through the federal government our citizens have committed $12 trillion to the economic bailout by rescuing from ruin the banks and two-thirds of the auto industry as well as other institutions.
In light of such spending – along with the expenditure of $1 trillion on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by the end of 2010 – why have our elected officials been denying more help to the common man and woman during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression?
Insisting that the bill not add to the deficit, the Senate has failed – yet again – to pass a $112-billion measure to extend the Federal Medicaid Assistance Percentage (FMAP) past its expiration set for December. If the bill continues to stall, the consequences will be dire for over 30 states – including Pennsylvania – that have planned their strained budgets around the allocation of these funds.
Gov. Ed Rendell gave a catastrophic snapshot of the Commonwealth’s already bare-bones social-services landscape if FMAP’s $850 million in funding is not forthcoming. Reductions could include a 25-percent cut to all counties for child-welfare services and a 90-percent reduction in state-funded social services for families and poor adults.
Last Tuesday seven regional elected officials and health and human-service leaders gathered at a press conference, taking turns at the microphone to lend their personal stamp to the chorus of advocates and governors nationwide who have decried Congress’ insensitivity and lack of action.
Accusing lawmakers of using FMAP as a “political power tool,” Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia ticked off a list of reductions including teacher layoffs at every grade level, curriculum cuts and curtailed bus service. “If we do not get the Medicaid funding it will result in tremendous cuts at every level of our educational system,” she insisted.
Mark Bullock, Esq., a senior vice president of government and legal services at Mercy Health System, echoed similar concerns. Besides preserving access to care at the system’s four hospitals – which handle 100,000 charity emergency-room visits annually – FMAP, he said, “also provides funding to employ 8,000 people in good jobs with benefits throughout the region.”
“FMAP is an economic engine rather than wasteful government spending,” added JEVS Human Services Director of Public Policy Mark J. Davis, Esq. “It’s not something you can put off until the fall.”
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia CEO Steven Altschuler pointed out that poverty has grown faster in the suburbs than in the city, making it an issue affecting the heart of the middle class. Half of his hospital’s patients are publicly insured, he said, insisting “we will do whatever we can to support this effort.”
Over 80 percent of the Einstein Healthcare Network’s patients are on Medicaid, on Medicare or uninsured, said Chief Administrative Officer John Finger. Without FMAP “an ability to reach the neediest will be severely compromised,” he stated, also forecasting a ripple effect of even more unemployment on the horizon. “Thousands of additional jobs in this region and across the nation depend on the health-care industry.”
John Meacham, chief administrator of Philadelphia’s St. Ignatius Nursing Homes, said an $800,000 loss in FMAP funding would place his facility in jeopardy. “I have no way of making that up,” he confessed. “We have already cut services to the bare minimum.”
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter rattled off a trio of support programs in Philadelphia that have experienced increases in their rolls over the past year: 50,000 more people on food stamps, 24,000 more enrolled in Medicaid, and there are now 30,000 children on SCHIP.
The FMAP logjam is a “very, very serious issue,” he said, noting the city’s 11-percent unemployment rate. Assailing federal legislators in Washington as having a “deficit of compassion but most of all a deficit of political will,” he begged them to “stop the games, stop the nonsense.”
“This is not a time to cut children. This is not a time to hurt families,” Nutter implored. “If we can just hold onto what we have, quite frankly, in this environment that’s a victory.”
With a national unemployment rate hovering around 9.7 percent, southeastern Pennsylvania is not alone in facing economic calamity if FMAP is not extended.
And considering the size of the $1.3-trillion federal deficit, the rationale for holding hostage the mere pittance FMAP funding represents is disingenuous, reflective of a chicken-hearted Congress unwilling to muster the courage to do the right thing by voting to pass the aid and informing the public of the devastating consequences of cutting off this vital safety net.
Washington would be wise to heed the pleas of these knowledgeable regional leaders and take immediate action to assist our citizens on a nationwide basis.
Sid Holmes, MPA, HKS, is communications director of Public Citizens for Children and Youth, www.childrenfirstpa.org.
Main Line News Media – August 3, 2010 – Read article online