Medicaid rolls surging. Can Colorado keep up?

This New York Times article lays out how Medicaid rolls are surging in many states, including Colorado. The question here, as state leaders consider drastic cuts, is how can state agencies handle this surge and deliver the benefits to those in need, when they are being asked to do more with less? History has shown that doing more with less sounds nice in theory, but doesn't work out so well in practice.

Moreover, the state has been struggling with processing food stamp and other public benefit applications for years now, but little has been done to correct the problem. Legal action was taken four years ago, a settlement was reached in December 2007, yet right now more than 2,000 eligible people are not getting food stamps each month because of delayed processing.

On top of simply getting people the benefits they need to get by on a daily basis, the question has to be asked about how this impacts the health care crisis in Colorado. As the economy worsens, and more people are driven into poverty, those people will have to rely on the healthcare safety net to get by. Yet at the same time, if state government is cutting reimbursement rates, the level of uncompensated care could increase, which will drive up healthcare premiums for those who do have coverage. This all turns into a vicious cycle where people are losing coverage, prices continue rising, and those who do have coverage will continue paying more and more, until they are priced out of coverage too.

Bottom line: none of these problems can be considered in a vacuum. Memo to state leaders: don't forget about the big picture.