AP reports that a ludicrous GOP plan to eliminate AHCCCS in Arizona—supported by Republican Sen. Al Melvin, who rules over the Catalina Foothills and Oro Valley—would cost the state $7 billion, cause unemployment to skyrocket and drive doctors from the state:

Arizona’s economy would be devastated and roughly one in every five residents would be left without health care if the state ends its Medicaid program and loses $7 billion of federal funding, the state program’s director said Wednesday.

Under a bill approved by a Senate committee, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System would be abolished to help close a state budget shortfall.

The bill would replace AHCCCS with a greatly reduced system that would serve only a small fraction of the 1.3 million people now enrolled.

If that happens, unemployment would skyrocket and the state’s network of hospitals and other health care providers would be irreparably damaged, choking any growth of the state’s economy, said AHCCCS Director Tom Betlach.

A state-only system couldn’t even cover all of the 50,000 elderly and physically and development disabled people now enrolled, Betlach said.

“This bill does not even provide sufficient funding for our most frail citizens,” he said. “How do we care for these citizens? Where would they go?”

Doctors and other care providers would flee the state as the level of uncompensated care becomes untenable, Betlach said.

Mr. Betlach, Al Melvin doesn’t care about this state’s most frail citizens. He just cares about tax cuts and ensuring that children are born, not that they’re cared for once they’re alive.

It’s possible to have legitimate policy differences—say, as to whether the state should cut back the expansion of AHCCCS as a result of the Healthy Arizona proposition. But arguing that Arizona should dump Medicaid altogether is nothing short of lunacy masquerading as conservatism. And those who support it—we’re looking your way, Al—reveals themselves to be utterly unserious ideologues who should be laughed out of office.

It’s the shame of the state that, at a time when we need sober people to make smart decisions for the state, we have Russell Pearce and Al Melvin instead.

This article appears in Feb 24 – Mar 2, 2011.

Getting hassled by The Man Mild-mannered reporter

5 replies on “Al Melvin’s Plan to End AHCCCS Would Devastate Economy, Destroy Jobs and Drive Away Doctors”

  1. Are you suggesting that the voters of LD26 made a BIG MISTAKE when they voted for Cap’n Al? Let’s hope the redistricting committee puts Saddlebrooke in a Pinal County district where they belong.

  2. Are you suggesting the 280,000 folks that would be kicked off by rejecting a voter approved initiative are acceptable but the other folks are not? When voters decide to cover these folks, it is because the legislature has failed to act and we had over 1 million people in the state uninsured because the average family had to make less than $5000 a year to qualify. My sister with a pre-existing condition got coverage because of that bill — and it is not acceptable to toss it out because the legislature feels like giving corporate tax breaks instead of paying for health care.

  3. I am a survivor of stage IV Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and stem-cell transplant at the Mayo Clinic, thanks to AHCCCS.

    When my private insurance company, First Health, capped my coverage at $100K in the middle of my chemo treatments, AHCCCS (despite its many faults) helped me pay for treatment.

    The voters passed this coverage in 2000, because they cared about the wellbeing of their fellow Arizonans.

    All of the people so opposed to the federal government need stop accepting their Medicare and Social Security, get off Federal highways, roads, parks, and forests, reject the Border Patrol and ICE, stop drinking water from CAP, and give back all the millions of dollars spent from the Recovery act that Brewer accepted.

    The legislature is being run by petulant, spoiled, ignorant children and they are destroying Arizona.

  4. Sanity and Kindness: I’m not suggesting that it’s a good idea to roll back AHCCCS eligibility. As I’ve written in the past, I agree with folks like Glenn Hamer of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, who say it would increase the cost of private insurance and cost the state a lot of money in federal matching funds. (And cost jobs in the health-care sector, and hurt the hospitals.)

    What I was trying to do was make the point that arguing that it should be rolled back is a policy point that’s within the realm of rational political discussion, given that Arizona’s coverage is more generous than most states. But talking about scrapping AHCCCS altogether is simply political lunacy.

  5. Nintz,

    This one just takes your breath away and leaves you feeling like you were just struck in the head but you can’t tell how bad it is yet.

    Is this bill going to be enacted?

    Robert Alexander Dumas

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