First an Arizona lawmaker proposed to yank Medicaid and other social services from poverty-stricken folks caught enjoying an adult beverage, buying any junk food, or driving a car or watching a TV costing more than a bargain-basement amount. Now there’s a new proposal to yank free Medicaid benefits from the poorest Arizonans, period. Arizona has more than earned its latest THR Healthcare Hall of Shame Award.

Yes, while California creates new coverage options for the uninsured (San Francisco’s low-income coverage program, the state single payer initiative, and now Santa Clara county’s new coverage for uninsured workers), Arizona just finds ways to eliminate solutions for those with no options. Lawmakers have found a creative way to take a 2000  measure passed by voters to expand Medicaid coverage and re-interpret it to mean a 10%, not  a 100%, solution.

Basically, they want to remove the state government’s responsibility to provide supplementary funds to the tobacco settlement money that pays for free Medicaid. Currently the overall tab is approximately $1 billion. The handy reinterpretation of the law would mean making only the $118 million in tobacco money available for Medicaid subsidies for those below the poverty level ($18,310 for a family of three.)

What does that mean? It means 90% of current enrollees in subsidized Medicaid will be dropped and left with no coverage. Worse, the very same lawmakers admit there are still funds available to use for Medicaid subsidies, they just want to redirect them.

Thank goodness Raul Grijalva is in D.C. fighting to get quality, affordable healthcare for his constituents. The so-called representatives in Phoenix are instead fighting for survival of the wealthiest and healthiest. I guess that’s the Republican version of Darwinian Theory.

Photo Credit: Discoveryeducation.com

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