$139 Million Oops
November 10, 2011 - by
A TAPster says Rep. Nelson Dollar this week in effect admitted that Governor Perdue was right about Medicaid:
“Republicans in the General Assembly finally acknowledged their mistakes in the DHHS budget on Tuesday. Now they should reverse the damage their budget is doing to our schools too.
“Their DHHS budget created a $139 million hole in Medicaid because they made extremely unrealistic assumptions about potential cost savings. Their budget contemplated that if sufficient cost savings didn’t materialize in other places, they would try to get savings by making sharp cuts to provider rates and sharp cuts to optional services for needy people. On Tuesday, Rep. Dollar acknowledged that these steps would cause severe pain. Despite what he wrote in the budget, on Tuesday he said, ‘We are not going to cut services, and we are not going to cut rates’ to make up the hole.
“It’s great that the General Assembly has acknowledged the pain their budget would inflict in terms of health care for the needy. I hope they take steps to undo the pain that their education cuts are causing too. In terms of education, their budget:
-
“slashed our investment in K-12, which led to the loss of thousands of teachers and teachers’ assistant positions;
-
“made deep cuts to early childhood education, including Smart Start and NC Pre-K (formerly known as More at Four); and
-
“eviscerated funding for public universities, which has have forced the university system to lay off more than 3,000 people.
“Kudos to the General Assembly (at least Rep. Dollar) for recognizing their mistakes in health care, I hope they come to the same conclusion about education.”
$139 Million Oops
November 10, 2011/
A TAPster says Rep. Nelson Dollar this week in effect admitted that Governor Perdue was right about Medicaid:
“Republicans in the General Assembly finally acknowledged their mistakes in the DHHS budget on Tuesday. Now they should reverse the damage their budget is doing to our schools too.
“Their DHHS budget created a $139 million hole in Medicaid because they made extremely unrealistic assumptions about potential cost savings. Their budget contemplated that if sufficient cost savings didn’t materialize in other places, they would try to get savings by making sharp cuts to provider rates and sharp cuts to optional services for needy people. On Tuesday, Rep. Dollar acknowledged that these steps would cause severe pain. Despite what he wrote in the budget, on Tuesday he said, ‘We are not going to cut services, and we are not going to cut rates’ to make up the hole.
“It’s great that the General Assembly has acknowledged the pain their budget would inflict in terms of health care for the needy. I hope they take steps to undo the pain that their education cuts are causing too. In terms of education, their budget:
-
“slashed our investment in K-12, which led to the loss of thousands of teachers and teachers’ assistant positions;
-
“made deep cuts to early childhood education, including Smart Start and NC Pre-K (formerly known as More at Four); and
-
“eviscerated funding for public universities, which has have forced the university system to lay off more than 3,000 people.
“Kudos to the General Assembly (at least Rep. Dollar) for recognizing their mistakes in health care, I hope they come to the same conclusion about education.”