Politics-as-Usual Once Again:

Governor Wants to Balance Budget on the Backs of

Poor Children

By Jim Mangia, CEO, St. John’s Well Child and Family Center

Governor Schwarzenegger ran on a “reform” platform, claiming that he would challenge “politics-as-usual,” and restore fiscal integrity to Sacramento. But what could be more reflective of “politics-as-usual” than politicians breaking their promises, increasing budget deficits and balancing the budget on the backs of poor children?

The Governor’s proposed budget cuts, his “spending cap” and his deficit financing proposals (borrowing over $15 billion that our children will have to repay with interest over the next 30 years) will have direct and severe consequences to health services for millions of children in California. Even though during his campaign, he promised to increase support for the Healthy Families program, an insurance program for economically disadvantaged children – his first major budget proposal calls for cuts in this program and cutting off enrollment for any more children in need. The cuts are fiscally irresponsible (since the federal government reimburses the state $2 for every $1 it spends on this program). Given that the state makes money on the Healthy Families Program, what would motivate the Governor to cut back this program?

As well, Schwarzenegger is proposing to cut rates paid by the state Medi-cal program to doctors, community clinics and hospitals. Medi-cal is the program that covers the “aged, blind and disabled,” and provides health coverage to children born in the United States from poor working families. To make matters worse, Schwarzenegger’s proposed spending cap would make cuts in health care permanent and prevent any restoration of these cuts in better economic times.

The hard fact is that California already has a spending cap. By constitutional law, we must operate with a balanced budget. Moreover, approval of the budget requires a 2/3s vote of both houses of the state legislature, a process which forces compromise and give-and-take. Schwarzenegger’s proposed spending cap would force new and increasing cuts to health care services every subsequent year, since health care costs increase regularly because of new medicines and the cost of caring for an aging population. The brunt of these cuts will fall on health care for our children.

California’s children have already endured severe cuts in health care services under the Davis administration. Cuts in Medi-cal provider rates (amounts paid to doctors, hospitals and community clinics for providing direct patient care) were instituted and the coverage of working parents in the Healthy Families program was eliminated. Hard working, tax-paying families and their children, more and more of whom will become uninsured and will have no access to primary health care at a local doctor’s office or at a community clinic, will be forced into already overcrowded emergency rooms. This will directly threaten the public health of all Californians as emergency room waiting times increase, ambulances are diverted and nurses sort through and triage more and more emergency room patients. As well, emergency room care is significantly more expensive than regular visits to primary care doctors and clinics. Thus these cuts are fiscally irresponsible since they would ultimately drive up further the cost of health care.

Don’t our children deserve better? Unfortunately, they cannot vote and were unable to make significant political campaign contributions to Schwarzenegger’s effort. But Schwarzenegger’s populist promise of a new kind of political environment in the midst of the recall campaign seems to have evaporated into the same old partisan special interest politics which forced many Californians to vote yes on the recall in the first place. He is offering no new solutions to California’s fiscal crisis and is only offering draconian cuts to health care for our children and increasing the debt and mortgaging our future through a deficit bond issue.

It’s just the same-old, age-old cycle of broken political promises that result in an increasing miserable life for our poorest and most vulnerable children. Isn’t it time we really said no to “politics-as-usual” rather than simply supporting politicians who pay lip service to it in order to get elected?

_________________________

Jim Mangia is CEO of St. John’s Well Child and Family Center, a network of nonprofit federally qualified health centers providing free medical and dental services to over 40,000 children a year.