The state of Nevada may be depriving itself of much needed money. The Las Vegas Sun reports today that Congress has approved more federal spending to expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program. You’ll remember past references to SCHIP. SCHIP is a United States federal government program that gives matching funds to states in order to provide health insurance to families with children.
Nevada’s rendition of SCHIP is a program called Nevada Checkup. Governor Jim (no new taxes) Gibbons wants to put a cap on the number of children who can participate in the state program. His reasoning is that would reduce the state’s expenditures. It is one of his budget cutting efforts. But making that budget cut leaves a tens of thousands of Nevada families lacking health insurance without access to health care.
The Sun reports, “The state’s historical tendency to appropriate little money for Nevada Check Up has forced the (Nevada Checkup) program to leave behind millions of dollars in unmatched federal funds in the past decade.”
If the federal government is willing to provide matching funds for the Nevada Checkup why would Nevada not accept that money and beef up its Nevada Checkup capability to include those excluded children into the Check Up program?
“The chronic shortfall in state support for the program has left it serving only a third to one-half of those eligible for help, according to Chuck Duarte, the state employee who oversees Nevada Check Up.”
So why is Nevada not taking the SCHIP matching funds? Nevada Assembly woman, Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, says the reason is “our libertarian view that you should be able to take care of yourself.”
I don’t know if Leslie is correct or not. The idea of one “taking care of themselves” sounds just fine. But the reality of the matter is that people can’t just “take care of themselves.” You rack up a $10,000 hospital and medical bill on a Wal-Mart employees salary when your kid has to have an appendectomy demonstrates that the average person cannot “take care of themselves” in that situation. So what is one to do, let the kid die of a ruptured appendix because you can’t bear the embarrassment of being unable to “take care of yourself?” I can visualize John Wayne, with a stick in his mouth as an aide to dealing with the pain, lying there with a bullet in his body, telling some accompanying cowhand to “take the bullet out.” Even the revered John Wayne couldn’t “take care of himself,” he needed the cowhand’s help.
As Leslie said, “But that’s unrealistic when it comes to health insurance.” She says she will be seeking first to lift Gibbon’s proposed cap and then end Nevada Check Up’s chronic shortage of funding. Good for her. Wonder how Nye County’s Ed Goedhart will address this problem?
A fellow named Edwin Park is a senior fellow (ever wonder if there is such a thing as a “junior fellow?) at the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says Nevada has, overtime, developed one of the widest gaps between what the federal government could give to Nevada for the Nevada Checkup program and what Nevada receives.
Park stated “It’s an unusual situation. Nevada’s funding has always been much less than the federal funding.”
He gives an example. In the fiscal year ended September 30, Washington allocated $51 million to Nevada Check Up, but the program got only $28.8 million of that. He said that was because the state’s contribution–$14.2 million—fell short. The state “kicked in” $14.2 million."
In order for Nevada to get all that $51 million from the feds it would have had to contribute $11 million more than it did. If it had ponied up that $11 million Nevada Check Up would have had a total of $75 million instead of $43 million.
Makes you wonder where Nevada government’s head has been, doesn’t it? While we’re on this topic it is worth remembering the contribution Nevada’s finest representatives made to the federal SCHIP fund which is used to bolster Nevada’s Check up funding. Go look at How are Nevada’s Senators and Representatives Voting? to see how Representative Dean Heller, our eminent House Representative for Nye County, voted on the Children’s Health Insurance Program (i.e., SCHIP). I’ll give you a hint—he voted NO. Not much help from Mr. Heller to you Nye County folks. Elections have consequences—you get what you vote for. Think Jill Derby would have voted no?
So, you ask, what do you want me to do about it? Glad you asked.
Go blow 50 cents and buy today’s (February 3) issue of the Las Vegas Sun. Remove the Sun from it’s enclosure in the Review-Journal. Take your scissors and cut out the article on the front page with the headline “Nevada leaving money on table.” (Don’t forget to cut out the remainder of the article on page 3. Then sit down and get your pen and paper out and jot a note to Assemblyman Ed Goedhart. Enclose the Sun article and in your note refer him to it. Tell him you expect him to join hands with Sheila Leslie and help her accomplish her goal. Ed can hold his nose if he has to, but remind him he has another election coming up too and that you’re keeping tabs on how he votes. Who knows, old Ed just might come through.
It may help you to take this modest action if you knew that Patricia Durbin, executive director of the Great Basin Primary Care Association, says “more children will wind up in emergency rooms seeking help with conditions that could have been avoi
ded with affordable primary care. Increasingly these will be the children of families that once had insurance and lost it along with their jobs.”
As you read Durbin’s statement visualize Desert View Hospital here in Pahrump. Think about how Nevada Checkup can help Desert View’s finances and also your own pocket book. After all you sent that money for SCHIP to Washington in your income tax returns. Might as well get some of it back via the Nevada Checkup program.
Wouldn’t hurt, while you have your pen and paper out to send another note to Nevada State Senator Mike McGuiness, who also represents Nye County asking him to introduce himself to Sheila Leslie and for him to hold Leslie’s other hand.
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