Gnats, camels, and kids

 The recent clothing voucher kerfuffle would have been entertaining to watch if not for the harm that’s been done to thousands of children and the slander dumped on the heads of struggling low-income families--of which we have many in West Virginia--from the state’s highest office.

Let’s start with the changing story for shortchanging this vital program that’s been around for decades.

First, the delay in starting the program this year was blamed on a structural deficit for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Programs. That’s debatable, but at least it’s potentially a starting point for a realistic argument.

Then, there was pulling the plug on the delayed program after only a week due to the claim that there was no money. The program, if funded at last year’s level, would have cost around $11.4 million. In early July, the governor’s office announced a $370 million revenue surplus. The arithmetic isn’t exactly self-evident.

By early August, the story shifted to insulting claims about parents using the voucher electronic benefit cards (EBTs) for beer and cigarettes.

Imagine how it would look in other situations if someone kept changing the story.

It’s also striking to me that clothing vouchers are subject to this kind of evidence-free accusation while the much more expensive Hope Scholarship gets a pass.

The clothing voucher is worth $200 per child. The Hope program costs over $5,000 per student with no guardrails, or 25+ times more. By the end of the last fiscal year, this cost the state around $155 million. The legislature allocated $277 million for the 26/27 school year, again over 25 times more than the voucher cost last year.

Talk about a lot of beer and cigarettes.

Is the unequal scrutiny of the two programs because the vouchers are specifically for low-income families while even the wealthy can get Hope? I guess it’s easier to punch down, although I’ve never seen the attraction of it.

 That kind of glaring contradiction reminds of a saying of Jesus, who condemned hypocrites for “straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel” (Matthew 23:24).

Supposedly, the beer and cigarettes caper was made possible because the voucher benefits are now delivered by an EBT card. However, as journalist Steven Allen Adams noted,

“The School Clothing Allowance used to be a paper voucher, but the previous administration of former Gov. Jim Justice made it an EBT card instead, allowing greater flexibility for families to extract those funds for places that don’t accept EBT cards to purchase clothes and back-to-school supplies. The previous paper voucher system also was a pain for retailers and also meant waiting long periods for reimbursement from DoHS.”

If state leaders want to go back to the paper voucher system, fine. They can do that next year. But that’s no reason to hurt the families who need help the most now.

Medicaid/Medicare in danger as it turns 61

(This column by Lida Shepherd ran in West Virginia Watch last week.)

 Last week marked the 61st anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid, and with so many dire threats to both health care programs, we would do well to reflect on their history and the promises delivered to millions of Americans since they were signed into law six decades ago in Independence, Missouri.  

On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicare and Medicaid Act, marking the beginning of Medicare, a health insurance program for people over 65, and Medicaid, a health insurance program for people with limited income. 

At the bill-signing ceremony, former President Harry Truman and his wife Bess were enrolled as Medicare’s first two beneficiaries and received the first Medicare cards.  President Johnson then recognized Truman for his 20-year effort in pushing for a national health insurance program. As far back as 1948, Truman, while campaigning for reelection, had said, “I put it to you, is it un-American to visit the sick, aid the afflicted or comfort the dying? I thought that was simple Christianity.” Truman won reelection, however he faced impossible opposition from Congress, and would have to wait 20 years to see his dream of a national health care program fully realized. Truman then remarked at the ceremony, “Mr. President, I am glad to have lived this long and to witness today the signing of the Medicare bill which puts this Nation right where it needs to be, to be right.”

Today’s Medicare program provides healthcare for 70 million senior Americans. Prior to President Donald Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” passed in July of last year, nearly 81 million Americans received health care through Medicaid. But in passing that bill, the GOP controlled Congress, including our entire delegation, made the single largest cut to healthcare in U.S. history, with a $1 trillion cut to Medicaid alone. In only one year since that fateful vote, a staggering 8 million Americans have already lost healthcare coverage. And for what? To pay for tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations.  

And the hits from the Trump administration keep coming: last week the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that it will end Medicare Part D, a subsidy program that stabilizes premiums of prescription drug plans, impacting nearly 25 million seniors and people with disabilities who afford prescriptions through that program.

The elimination of Affordable Care Act tax credits coupled with onerous eligibility restrictions have also led to skyrocketing premiums and a precipitous drop in the number of people with health care coverage. We can expect that healthcare enrollment will continue to deteriorate as people on Medicaid struggle to reckon with the mountains of paperwork now required around work reporting requirements and redeterminations — scheduled to go into effect in January 2027.  

According to Steve Davis, a professor in the department of health policy management at West Virginia University, “You will see less utilization of healthcare services because people no longer have insurance. So less utilization, less access to health care and more sickness, morbidity and potentially even mortality. And that is more costly for us all.”

The president and our members of Congress have turned their backs on the needs of West Virginians. This may come at a great political cost as the damage is felt by more and more people in terms of higher costs, loss of coverage, bankruptcies, hospital closures, preventable deaths and job loss.

President Johnson, in his praise of President Truman for his unwavering commitment to a national health care program, said, “And just think, Mr. President, because of [Medicare and Medicaid] — and the long years of struggle which so many have put into creating it — there are men and women in pain who will now find ease. There are those, alone in suffering who will now hear the sound of some approaching footsteps coming to help. There are those fearing the terrible darkness of despairing poverty — despite their long years of labor and expectation — who will now look up to see the light of hope and realization.”  

Instead of hope or help, today’s approaching footsteps are bringing misery to millions of Americans.  But at some point, hopefully soon, they will wake up a sleeping giant.