To adapt a phrase, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and stories in the media.
That’s the best way to understand the drumbeat of news articles and opinion pieces (there’s little difference) attacking red states for cleaning up Medicaid, which at the year’s start had a staggering 20 million-plus ineligible recipients.
We’re talking about people who make too much money — often hundreds of thousands of dollars — and don’t need taxpayers’ help.
Yet the media, like the Democratic Party, want as many people on welfare programs as possible, so they’re giving the false impression only helpless families are being kicked to the curb.
It’s as shameless as it is dishonest.
Red states are fixing Medicaid after Washington, DC, deliberately broke it during the pandemic.
From early 2020 until April this year, states were effectively banned from removing ineligible recipients.
This backwards policy was supposed to help people who lost jobs or income, but as they got back in the workforce or increased their wages, they wrongly remained on the rolls.
At this year’s start, taxpayers were forking over a stunning $16 billion a month for ineligible recipients.
The millions of people who depend on Medicaid, meanwhile, often struggled to get care.
Red states are doing the right thing by right-sizing Medicaid.
They’re fighting for taxpayers and the truly needy.
Yet in the media’s telling, the less fortunate are the ones being hurt.
A classic example is the recent, widely shared Washington Post column accusing my home state, Arkansas, of heartlessly taking away Medicaid from a mom and her baby.
Arkansas is public enemy No. 1.
Why?
Because under Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, it’s moving faster than any other state to make Medicaid sane again.
When the year began, Arkansas had an estimated 422,000 potentially ineligible people on Medicaid.
Since April, it’s removed more than 300,000.
Michigan has taken off a pathetic 23,000 ineligible recipients, forcing taxpayers, as in other blue states, to keep subsidizing far more individuals who can pay for their own medical care.
All told, states have unenrolled more than 5.4 million ineligible Medicaid recipients in the last five months, the vast majority red states.
The media are telling sob stories of people losing Medicaid who actually qualified for taxpayers’ help.
It’s a classic case of finding exceptions then pretending they’re the rule.
In a massive government program like Medicaid, there will always be mistakes, in red and blue states alike.
The press is being deliberately irresponsible by using a handful of errors to attack the entire effort to fix a broken program.
Here’s a story the media won’t tell.
My wife and I have a special-needs son who depends on Medicaid for frequent doctor visits and daily medications.
Since 2020, it’s become increasingly difficult to get appointments and prescriptions, in large part because there are hundreds of thousands of ineligible people competing with my son to see the few doctors who take Medicaid.
We’ve had some scary and even dangerous experiences as a result.
Our child should never have been put in this frightening situation.
Our son’s fight for medical care is exactly why red states are working so hard to fix Medicaid.
Millions of people similarly rely on the program, only to be pushed back in line by people who shouldn’t be there in the first place.
Why don’t the media tell their stories?
The answer is obvious: Because it doesn’t advance the agenda of welfare for all.
For that matter, even the stories the press is telling are profoundly flawed.
My son has accidentally been removed from Medicaid by state officials before.
You know what happened next?
We contacted the right state agency and got him back on the program in a matter of days.
Agencies move heaven and earth for people who depend on Medicaid.
They do the right thing.
And it’s equally right for state officials to fight like hell to get people who shouldn’t be on Medicaid off the program.
I’m grateful Gov. Sanders is standing up for my son.
She’s also standing up for me as a taxpayer.
The same is true of every governor and state legislature pushing to get those 20 million-plus ineligible people off Medicaid as quickly as possible.
When the media accuse them of being heartless monsters who don’t care about moms and babies, Americans should recognize the blatant lie.
The truth is red states are protecting taxpayers and the truly vulnerable, as they damn well should.
Nick Stehle is vice president of communications at the Foundation for Government Accountability.
