The Commissioner’s Lame Excuse

In a year when legislators are rooting around in the cushions of the state office furniture looking for nickels and dimes to throw into the $500 million hole in their budget, you would think that every last sentient being in Hartford would have gotten the message by now: leverage every resource and save every spare buck. Still, remarkably, Department of Social Services (DSS) Commissioner Michael Starkowski has not bothered to apply for $179.6 million in federal grants that are currently available to Connecticut. The federal grants would reimburse Connecticut for State Administered General Assistance Grants (SAGA) to state hospitals caring for the 43,500 low-income residents who are not eligible for federal Medicare and Medicaid programs. (See story on page A-3)

In a letter to legislators last month, Mr Starkowski explained that his department had neglected to apply for the federal funds because it had expected that SAGA reimbursements would be covered by federal health care reform legislation. Why a state bureaucrat would pass up money already on the table in favor of the promise of a besieged and sinking federal health care package is beyond our understanding. The explanation is really just a lame excuse. The legislature has been pleading with the DSS to secure all available federal funding for the SAGA program since 2004, when the health care reform package was just a gleam in an Illinois state senator’s eye.

This is not just about money and political parsimony, though fiscal neglect on this scale is particularly galling when Newtown and Connecticut stand to lose the 200-year tradition of the Second Company Governor’s Horse Guard for the want of $76,000 in the state budget. The federal money is critical to the health of Connecticut’s hospitals. When health care facilities are forced to underwrite the care of the state’s neediest residents, they must do one of two things: prepare for insolvency or raise their rates for their paying customers, which consist largely of insurance companies. And no one passes costs along to consumers faster than the insurance industry. So the failure to even apply for available federal grants delivers a double whammy to taxpayers: higher taxes or reduced services (or both) from their state government, and higher health insurance premiums.

In an attempt to forestall that result, the General Assembly increased spending for SAGA health care reimbursements by $134.3 million in the 2010-2011 budget. The federal money, which DSS has left untouched, could reap a net savings of $45.4 million for the state. In the new common currency of misplaced priorities, that is 597.36 Horse Guards.