Editorial: Medicaid Is Out Of Control

Its costs mushroomed because nobody bothered to stop them

Charleston Daily Mail, May 3, 2005

Until the supply of bucks becomes a problem, policy-makers often shovel money through programs for decades without questioning whether the expenditures are necessary. That's what members of Congress and the Legislature have done with the Medicaid program..

Between 1970 and 2003, the costs of the program increased by 4,901 percent, according to Chernoff Diamond Benefits Consultants. It now costs the American taxpayer more than $300 billion a year. The number of people receiving Medicaid benefits rose from 3.8 million people in 1970 to 53 million.

But according to a General Accounting Office report of July 16, 2004 , the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services allocated, in 2004, $26,000 and eight staff positions -- nationally -- to oversee the integrity of the states' Medicaid programs.  Noted the GAO dryly: "This level of effort suggests that CMS's oversight of the states . . . may be disproportionately small relative to the risk of serious financial loss."

How true.

West Virginia 's Medicaid program now costs federal and state taxpayers $2.1 billion. The state can no longer afford to pay its share of that.

After decades of abuse, taxpayers have begun balking at the astronomical and rising costs of Medicaid. Some members of Congress, and some legislators, are digging in to fight cuts. Others are looking for savings, and finding the most amazing things.

The West Virginia group disgorged one statistic the other day that is emblematic of the degree of cost-containment that has been going on for decades:

One of West Virginia 's 373,883 Medicaid patients went to the emergency room more than 300 times in two years -- on your dime. Medicaid is the Cadillac of the nation's health care plans. It provides first-dollar coverage with no co-pays.

The state Department of Health and Human Services is thinking of requiring Medicaid patients to part with a few of their own dollars when they go to the emergency room to consume yours.

That would be a start, but only just.