Chairman Smith and members of the House Healthcare Budget Subcommittee:
I am Debbie Spaugh, President of the Greenville County Republican Women’s Club. Thank you for the opportunity to speak about your plans for the state’s healthcare budget. The Obamacare plan for giving more Americans access to health insurance coverage is through federal government-controlled insurance exchanges and expanding states’ Medicaid rolls. In South Carolina about 500,000 more people would be added to Medicaid. Why would South Carolina want to add a half-million people to a system that we cannot afford and does not work? According to The National Association of State Budget Officers, in fiscal year 2011, South Carolina’s spending on Medicaid equaled 20.7 percent of expenditures. The only function with higher expenditures was Higher Education, at 21 percent.
Because our state cannot afford the extra cost of expanding Medicaid rolls, the South Carolina health-care industry is considering taxing itself to pay for this expansion. Why would hospitals offer to do this? According to an article in The State, South Carolina hospitals stand “to collect billions of added federal Medicaid spending.” It’s a good thing that the U.S. Government doesn’t have a $16.5 Trillion debt, or it couldn’t afford to send billions of dollars to states to expand Medicaid.
From Nicole Kaeding with Americans for Prosperity, we learn that Medicaid provider taxes are a “Charade.” “Provider taxes manipulate the Medicaid system by maximizing federal contribution while minimizing state contributions.” “It’s a scam and federal taxpayers are the ones getting hurt.” “In November, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) called provider taxes a ‘charade,’ Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) previously introduced legislation to phase-out these harmful taxes.” This charade was recently adopted by Arizona Governor, Jan Brewer. “A similar idea is being pushed by providers in South Carolina to encourage Governor Haley to support expansion.”
Read more at: http://americansforprosperity.org/legislativealerts/medicaid-provider-taxes-a-charade/#ixzz2KEUR8GrA.
Medicaid, along with most federal government entities and entitlements, is a failure. According to the Manhattan Institute, “Studies consistently show that patients on Medicaid have the worst health outcomes of any group in America – far worse than those with private insurance and, in some cases, worse than those with no insurance at all.” A study published in the Annals of Surgery by physicians at the University of Virginia showed the following results for 893,658 individuals undergoing major surgical operations from 2003 to 2007: “Medicaid patients were almost twice as likely to die as those with private insurance; their hospital stays were 42 percent longer and cost 26 percent more. Compared with those without health insurance, Medicaid patients were 13 percent more likely to die, stayed in the hospital for 50 percent longer, and cost 20 percent more.”
Federally-controlled health insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion serve one purpose – to usher in single-payer (total federal government-controlled) health care system.
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Debbie Spaugh is President of Greenville County Republican Women’s Club.
Jane M. Orient, M.D. obtained her under-graduate degrees in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Arizona in Tucson, and her M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1974. She completed an internal medicine residency at Parkland Memorial Hospital and University of Arizona Affiliated Hospitals and then became an Instructor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and a staff physician at the Tucson Veterans Administration Hospital. She has been in solo private practice since 1981 and has served as Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) since 1989. She is currently president of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. Since 1988, she has been chairman of the Public Health Committee of the Pima County (Arizona) Medical Society. She is the author of 
