Proposed State Budget Underfunds Health Care By $95 Million, No wait, $51 Million, No, Um, It's Funded Completely!

Thanks to creative financing by the alleged leadership of the S.C. House of Representatives, South Carolina's woefully inadequate Medicaid system is now fully funded! Except, of course, they are proposing to continue the practice of funding recurring needs with non-recurring money - the kind of irresponsible action that has created the budget crisis we're now in.

By refinancing the state's tobacco settlement funds, House leaders Wilkins, Harrell and Quinn say they can fill the roughly $51 million hole in the Ways & Means Committee's Medicaid budget. They say it will raise approximately $45 million - though that still doesn't equal $51 million, but who's counting - and that this is all good, solid, recurring money that we can count on for years to come. No, wait a minute, upon further review, they admit that it does include $15 million in non-recurring funds, maybe.

The fact is, the alleged House leadership continues to play with funny money. Under their revised proposal, Medicaid would be funded with $10 million in unspecified eligibility changes (read: kicking people off the rolls), at least $45 million in one-time money (including $30 million they admitted to last week and $15 million from tobacco settlement refinancing), a $20 million tax increase on hospitals and by taking $20 million out of an underfunded Department of Education.

The time for Bandaids is over. This temporary, one-time solution will leave us with an even bigger problem next year. It is time for a stable, recurring, dedicated source of funding for health care, not more creative financing. The cigarette tax is the only solution that works, and the alleged leadership knows it.