Worried about Medicaid reform

To the editor:A recent article noted that high turnover among Gov. Matt Blunt's health-care administrators is raising concerns about proposed Medicaid overhaul. And well it should. The best anyone can figure, the governor has secretly thrown together a plan to replace Medicaid without allowing input from stakeholders such as the 21 independent living centers in Missouri that represent the disabled community and many other groups whose input would help avoid a potential fiasco. For example, it is rumored the plan requires applicants to sign up for Medicaid via the Internet, when in fact less than 20 percent of persons with disabilities have access to or can use the Internet.

Assurances by the governor that his plan can move forward without all the folks who have abandoned ship are as credible as his campaign promise not to cut Medicaid. Slashing Medicaid services to the sick and disabled became his top priority when he took office.

The governor needs to abandon his annoying tendency to rely on political cronies to re-engineer Medicaid. He should also abandon the arbitrary drop-dead date for Medicaid of July 2008. The new Congress in Washington has already made Medicaid and Medicare reform a top priority. How will the governor's vaunted secret plan fit in with this?

Health care and its cost will figure hugely in the 2008 elections. Missouri Lawmakers had best read the tea leaves from the last election before embarking on a project that may leave Missouri's sick and disabled without a lifeline and its voters fuming.

WILL RICHARDSON, Jackson