Attachment Files

Article - How to Permanently Reduce State Medicaid and Prison Costs Instead of Postponing and Papering Over Them

Summary/Abstract

Chairman of CASA examines current medicaid policies for the substance abuse population and offers alternate cost reduction strategy - invest in prevention and substance abuse treatment

Content

There are two fiscal gluttons gobbling taxpayer dollars, threatening to starve other public needs like education, and creating budget crises for at least 46 states: Medicaid and prisons. And there is one common tapeworm that spawns this ravenous appetite for state funds: substance abuse and addiction. New York, California, Illinois and New Jersey make the headlines for their huge budget deficits and whopping Medicaid and prison costs, but in fact most every state faces budget deficits due to the same culprits. The reaction of governors to Medicaid's explosion in costs tends to be to eliminate coverage of services such as hearing and vision care, transplants, and obesity surgery, and to reduce payments to doctors, hospitals, and ambulance services. To cut prison costs, most governors appear to favor releasing inmates early to trim the size of the prison population and, as New York City is doing, reduce things like the size of food portions that prisoners get. Such tactics are short term and short sighted. They assure that in the long run (on somebody else's watch) the need for public services and the burden on law abiding, taxpaying citizens will increase. Here's a proposal for any governor who can see beyond getting through his or her term, or winning re-election or election to some other office, and who has the courage to do what any business executive in the private sector would do: Make an investment that will solve, not simply postpone or paper over the problem. If small business owners want to increase their business, or lawyers or doctors want to add to their practice, or large corporations want to get into new markets — or if any of them want to reduce costs by modernization or eliminating inefficiencies — they make additional investments in order to make more money in the future, over the long haul. Is there a governor with the courage to apply this simple concept to permanently reduce Medicaid and prison costs? If there is, here's how. See Attached PDF for Entire Article