South Carolina is facing a serious crisis in providing funding for healthcare services to low-income persons through its Medicaid program. Clearly policymakers are faced with a critical dilemma either increase taxes to cover the funding shortfall for this program or actually sit down and evaluate the effectiveness of the entire Medicaid system. Yet even before the system has been reviewed in-depth, the representatives from the medical profession and operators of our states hospitals have urged the General Assembly to increase taxes to increase Medicaid funding.
The responsible solution is to re-evaluate Medicaid and determine which services work and improve or eliminate those services that are not cost efficient. Meaningful reform is needed before a tax increase should be considered a quick fix simply postpones tough decisions that will have to eventually be made by policy makers.