Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
- Jan 26, 2000
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Medicaid has to be paid for, education has to be paid for, and about 10,000 other things have to be paid for. Ideally, we wouldn't transfer education funding to pay for Medicaid. I personally would have looked for cuts elsewhere...but...well, what you gonna do. There's waste in education too.
There's waste in everything, and sometimes "waste" isn't, but a misunderstanding by those who aren't well versed in what would best facilitate the purpose of whatever we might be discussing.
I think you hit on a few things which are relevant.
Government is going to move and distribute funds and those in charge see fit.
Yes it will. That's a huge problem which can be extended to the whole health care debate. In our system of government the theory is that it will allocate resources which are best for the citizenry as a whole. In truth political concerns are the overriding factor in most situations. My understanding is that some time before I moved to NY there was an attempt to reform Medicaid by a Republican. No it wasn't to eliminate, but reform. Well the Dems decided that here was a great opportunity to destroy the Reps, and they promoted that it was about the rich wanting to gut the poor, and especially the black poor. Sound familiar?
The result is that the Dems were able to further solidify their hold on the state and give the Reps a beating. Well what the Dems should have done is co-opt the idea. They could have taken the credit if politics was most important.
Nope. They were allied with Sharpton and others and made protecting a system which they knew was corrupt (which is distinct from "wasteful" because it purposeful) top priority.
Consequently with the most recent economic downturn the whole state is collapsing on itself. When money was there, the state expanded it's programs at every opportunity as if the gravy train had no end.
That brings on my present rant. It isn't that Medicaid is bad in theory, but in practice is horrendous. Rather than reform, they wish to feed the beast with other needed funds.
I don't know where you are in NY, but we had some tax relief in something known as the STAR program. That's gone. In western NY, you may have to spend 8K or more in taxes on a 200k home. That's the highest in the nation, and specifically earmarked for education. So was the lottery. Would I say there's waste in education? Of course, because there's inefficiency in everything, but we have more control at the local level and those who spend the money are held to a higher level of accountability. So when we have a building program, something gets built.
Now to your point. Yes Medicaid needs funding, and so does education. One gets cut, the other not. One is full of corruption and the other not.
We can take from our children's future, but we cannot address the considerable shortcomings of how Medicaid is administered. Therein lies the difference. While we are at it, who could benefit from education the most? Those on Medicaid. It's not the middle class alone harmed by this.
Back to health care. In light of the above, we're going to put MORE people on it. It's like putting people on heroin. We're at the breaking point, and no matter what anyone says, the cost is going to be foisted on the states in large part. It's ALWAYS the case. More people on a corrupt, inefficient system that one party controls and uses to the detriment of everything else.
It's hard to look at all that and say "Hey that's great!"
Theory and practice are not the same.