Medicaid compromise needed

Our state's Medicaid program is in deep trouble due to a $90 million budget shortfall. A special session has been called to get something done or cuts will have to be made to this crucial program. Medicaid helps provide some level of health care to roughly one quarter of our population. This is a very serious issue to a lot of good people in this state.

Governor Haley Barbour has proposed to fill the gap with a per-bed tax on hospitals. This cost will ultimately be passed on to the patients. The Senate passed a bill that is in line with the governor. The House passed a bill that would use funds from a proposed increase in the tobacco tax to make budgetary ends meet. The governor has threatened to make severe cuts to Medicaid if his plan is not used.

Speaker Billy McCoy and House lawmakers have offered a compromise that would meet the governor in the middle. Meanwhile Haley Barbour has tried to paint McCoy as being an obstructionist. That seems funny to me, since the House has been willing to compromise, but not the governor.

The one issue presenting the greatest challenge is a $90 million deficit in the Division of Medicaid, which provides health care for about 600,000 elderly, disabled and poor pregnant women and children.

The governor has said he will begin making cuts in the health care agency when the fiscal year begins on July 1 if the Legislature does not pass a $167.25 per bed, per day tax on hospitals based on their patient count in 2006.

The Senate has passed the plan. The House leadership prefers a hike in the cigarette tax, though it has offered a partial hospital tax/cigarette tax compromise.

In Sunday's Daily Journal key House Democrats offered hope that Lt. Governor Phil Bryant will break with the Governor and come to a compromise.

"I think the lieutenant governor is poised to do good things," said House Public Health Committee Chairman Steve Holland, D-Plantersville. "...It would take courage, independence and a spirit of compromise.

"But I think he has it in him." ...

...Senate Public Health Committee Chairman Hob Bryan, D-Amory, said Bryant already has broken with the governor on this issue. Early on, Barbour proposed placing a gross revenue assessment on the hospitals.

Bryant, Bryan said, rejected that proposal because of concerns the plan would result in the bankruptcy of some small hospitals.

Expect a lot of rhetoric out of the governor's office blaming Speaker McCoy and House Democrats for obstructing his plan. The real question is, which side offers compromise and which side offers the sound and fury of hot air?