Government's job not to pay our bills

Medicaid. The undercover single-payer health-care entitlement is being pushed hard by those who think the government’s job is to pay our bills.

As we heard when the Montana Legislature was debating Medicaid expansion, why would anyone turn down free money from the federal government to expand coverage to the poor and not-so-poor people in the state? It’s such no-brainer that you had to be either stupid or heartless.

Let’s look at some reasons. Since 1965, Medicaid expenditures have grown more than twice as fast as GDP. In 1970 Medicaid spending was 1.4 percent of the federal budget. That has risen to 2.4 percent in 1980, 3.3 percent in 1990, 6.6 percent in 2000, 7.9 percent in 2010, and will be 9.8 percent in 2017. Does anyone else see an unsustainable trend there? You can’t keep gobbling up a bigger and bigger portion of the budget pie forever. It has to come from somewhere. Either cutbacks in vital services or borrowed from future generations. And at some point, the money runs out.

But it’s OK because the federal government pays for it, right? Well that may have been true, but the portion paid by the states is increasing. In 1990, the portion of state budgets devoted to Medicaid was about 10 percent. Currently, it is 20 percent. Almost 1 out of every 5 dollars that states spend goes to cover Medicaid costs. And remember what the feds do when they want to save money: They push costs onto the states.

My question is, why would you expect fiscal responsibility from the same people who gave us the unfunded pension crisis and runaway military spending. Remember, the goal is to get elected today and let someone else pay the bills tomorrow. Forget the political rhetoric. We all want everyone to have access to good health care. But long-term, not just today.

—Rick Patrick

Whitefish