Topinka: Medicaid Savings to Come from Managed Care

Gubernatorial hopeful Judy Baar Topinka responded today to charges that she hates grandmas and little kids. [Thanks CapFax]

According to Topinka, the $2.9 billion she hopes to wring out in savings from Medicaid will come from requiring folks to enroll in managed care style programs.

What I am proposing is that we manage the massive growth of the state’s $8 billion-and-growing annual program by transitioning Illinois’ Medicaid recipients into a managed care system just like the state offers its employees and private sector companies provide for their employees.

Amazingly, Illinois taxpayers are now paying for a Medicaid program that is much more expensive than their own private health care plans. While billions of taxpayers dollars go wasted, Rod Blagojevich is asleep at the switch.

Through better management, over four years, Illinois can wring $2.9 billion in savings from a program that will cost taxpayers nearly $40 billion.

Topinka couldn't pass up the opportunity to call Governor a big, fat liar. Well, these were the actual first words of her release:

Rod Blagojevich isn't telling voters the truth.

Topinka has put me in the rare position these days of defending Rod Blagojevich. I went back and looked at Topinka's release, "Common Sense Budget Cuts." The words "managed care system" don't appear anywhere in there. She does say:

Establishing a Medicaid Reform Task Force on her first day in office to determine how to precisely restructure our Medicaid plan. Follow in the footsteps of Florida—a state that is making their Medicaid system look more like private insurance than a government program.

Now, I'm not sure which it is. Is Topinka going to move us toward a "managed care system," or is her Medicaid Reform Task Force going to decide the best approach? Will medicaid recipients have a vote on the task force, or will it be packed with private insurance company representatives who hope to get lucrative subcontracts providing managed care services for Medicaid?

These are two good questions to ask. I'm sure someone has more.

But my first point is this: how can any reasonable person be expected to discern that Topinka was talking about Medicaid managed care, let alone Governor Blagojevich? Heck, some of Topinka's loyalists were convinced she was going to save $2.9 billion by targeting illegal aliens who travelled thousands of miles from Mexico, risking their lives through the desert, in hopes of sneaking on to the welfare rolls here.

My second point is this: If Topinka doesn't want her opponent to define her positions, her p.r. staff needs to do a better job of defining them to the public in her initial release.

My third point is this: I don't know many voters who think Illinois should be more like Florida (land of swamps, gators and hurricanes) or wish state government was run more like an insurance company. You guys might want to expand your Encyclopedia of Analogies.