Getting off the dole is way to economic health

5 comments:

• MyAIC posted at 4:06 pm on Wed, Feb 9, 2011.

  Posts: 4

  When Cutting $1 Actually Cuts $3 - The Economics of an AHCCCS Rollback

  Even if President Obama okayed Arizona's plan to cut Medicaid coverage, and even if those cuts were not deemed an unconstitutional violation of Proposition 204, cutting AHCCCS the way the governor is proposing would still be a bad idea.

  Consider the economic impact of AHCCCS cuts in the first year alone:
  • Arizona employment would be approximately 30,000 lower relative to the baseline (no change in AHCCCS)
  • Real Gross State Product (GSP) would be lower relative to the baseline by approximately $2.5 billion (2010$)
  • Real disposable income would be lower relative to the baseline by approximately $1.35 billion (2010$)
  • The Arizona population would be lower relative to the baseline by approximately 8,200

  Now, there are some new alternatives. The Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association (AzHHA) has proposed a $300 million assessment on the state's hospitals. They would get $100 million of that back from the state as payment for AHCCCS services and $200 million back from the federal government under the matching program. The plan would save the state $200 million, though it would still leave $340 of the $540 million that Brewer had proposed cutting.

  The AzHHA proposal doesn't solve the problem, but it's a start. As the Arizona Daily Star put it, "it's a creative idea. We see too few of those."

  http://www.arizonaic.org/blog/336-ahcccs-cutbacks-economic-impact-arizona
  

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• CooperG posted at 5:03 am on Sun, Feb 6, 2011.

  Posts: 132

  Spiffy, Tom, but riddle me this:

  Explain in any form of economic terms you choose how cutting revenues to the state causes the cost of building or maintaining even one mile of roadway any cheaper.

  Explain in any form of economic theory you choose how willfully cutting 46,7000 health care jobs is an economic boon to the state when APS says that the loss of every 50,0000 jobs creates a $1 billion loss to the state's economy.

  There are a lot of people here who can't see the forest for the trees and you happen to be one of them. Your policies are killing this state and the most important question is, for what good reason?

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• Dale Whiting posted at 9:15 am on Sat, Feb 5, 2011.

  Posts: 3705

  Tom,

  You say "Then the trap was sprung." This infers that someone sprung that trap. Was it you? Was it those Conservative AZ legislators who crafted the trap.

  Why don't you come out of retirement a practice medicine for the poor, homeless and otherwise medically uncovered? That would speak louder than writing this columns and would do much more good!

  Leon,

  An excellent quotation from a very liberal man. Keep up this good work.
  

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• Leon Ceniceros posted at 8:26 am on Sat, Feb 5, 2011.

  Posts: 2610

  "I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves and became richer"
  Benjamin Franklin
  November 1766
  

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• wdgnas posted at 8:11 am on Sat, Feb 5, 2011.

  Posts: 549

  We eventually have to recognize that government can never fulfill all our desires and that spending money we don't have on things we want now is bad business.
  sounds like good advice to businesses that depend on the government for subsidies...

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