SALT LAKE CITY — For months, a Utah legislative task force and gubernatorial work group met to hash out possible options for expanding Medicaid in the state. In the end, the work group had parsed through data, debates, and public comment to reach a consensus on several possible scenarios for providing health care to people living at 100 percent to 138 percent of the poverty line.
Now, Republican members of Utah’s House of Representatives have offered a plan for providing limited health care to an even more limited number of those living at or just above poverty.
The House Republican plan eschews any federal funding, despite the millions of Utah tax dollars on the table, and instead relies entirely on minimal state funding. While the governor’s work group spent hours determining how many people would benefit from the expansion, what level of health care they would receive and how to best use the federal funding to maximize the potential health benefits to about 124,000 vulnerable individuals, the House Republican plan has no answers for any of these questions.
In its current version, the plan uses $30 million to $35 million state tax dollars to provide some level of coverage to some individuals. The only certainties in the plan are that the number of individuals covered will be nowhere near the number that would be covered under expansion and the level of benefit will be far less than what Medicaid would provide.
The explanations offered for leaving millions of Utahns federal tax dollars for other states to use and providing far less coverage to vulnerable individuals do not justify the decision to deny health care to low income individuals. The explanations include that it is the best that legislators can do given the politics in the body, it is better than nothing at all, and it keeps the state from being reliant on federal funds.
These political and fiscal excuses are insufficient. Political expediency is no excuse for denying access to health care. The federal funding question is a nice political talking point, but Utah taxpayer funds will be sent to whatever states do expand Medicaid, rather than being returned to the state to help our low-income individuals.
And, despite the claims of the House sponsors, the plan is not the best that the Legislature can do. Throughout every legislative session, legislators often note that they do not want to support bills that require them to pick winners and losers, particularly when the winners and losers are businesses. With the House plan, however, representatives are choosing winners and losers among a vulnerable population. Perhaps more important, they are choosing winners and losers in a battle over something that is absolutely required to protect human life and dignity – health care.
Gov. Gary Herbert has indicated that he is also concerned about the House Republican plan. He appears more inclined to return some federal tax dollars to the state in order to better cover the health care needs of individuals living at or just barely above the poverty line.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church notes the right to medical care in several instances, but perhaps most explicitly in 2211, where it states "The political community has a duty to honor the family, to assist it, and to ensure especially: in keeping with the country’s institutions, the right to medical care, assistance for the aged, and family benefits. ..."
Please encourage your representative in the Utah House to reject the House Republican plan for health care and continue to pursue the options established by Gov. Herbert’s Medicaid Expansion working group.
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