By Paul Hyde
SCDailyGazette.com
It’s a tough Thanksgiving for tens of thousands of South Carolina children and their families.
While other headlines have grabbed our attention over the past few months, 63,768 children in low-income families have lost Medicaid coverage in South Carolina.
This is a dramatic step backward for a state that already is notoriously stingy on Medicaid.
The new figures from state Medicaid officials are part of what is being called the national “unwinding.”
More than 2 million children nationwide have lost Medicaid coverage, according to new analyses by KFF and the Georgetown Center for Children and Families.
The loss in coverage for many South Carolina children came about due to the end of a federal pandemic-era policy that guaranteed continued coverage through Medicaid.
Under that expired policy, people could be removed from Medicaid only if they died, moved out of state, or requested to be removed, according to state Medicaid officials.
“Since annual eligibility reviews have resumed, 63,768 children have been disenrolled from Medicaid coverage in South Carolina,” state Medicaid spokesman Jeff Leieritz said.
Many children were removed simply because review forms were not properly returned or returned at all, Leieritz said.
That suggests irresponsibility on the part of a lot of parents or guardians, but should the children pay the price?
A total of 200,000-300,000 South Carolinians will be taken off the Medicaid rolls if adults are included, according to state Medicaid officials. That puts the state back to 2019 Medicaid levels after four years of progress.
The New York Times called the unwinding “one of the fastest and most dramatic ruptures in the American safety net” since Medicaid was created in 1965.
The unwinding in South Carolina began this year, ironically enough, on April Fool’s Day.
A matter of decency
South Carolina’s state and federal elected official should be working together to patch up the Medicaid safety net. At least, reinstate the children.
It’s the right thing to do. This issue speaks to our basic decency and humanity as South Carolinians.
We know that South Carolina’s young people need to be two things — smart and healthy — to survive and thrive as adults in a fiercely competitive global economy.
Smart investment in both health care and education is an economic necessity.
By underfunding Medicaid, we may be undermining children’s opportunities for success and chipping away at the American Dream.
According to the annual Kids Count report, South Carolina remains one of the worst states in the nation for children. Our state ranks 47 in the nation on four important measures of children’s well-being: low birth-weight babies, children without health insurance, child and teen deaths, and childhood obesity.
South Carolina also has the fifth-highest infant mortality rate in the nation. Isn’t it strange that a state that’s so fiercely anti-abortion would tolerate one of the nation’s worst infant-mortality rates?
Health officials suggest that these statistics may result in blighted adult lives down the road.
SC funding other states
As Christmas nears, South Carolina remains dispiritingly Scrooge-like on Medicaid.
South Carolina is one of only 10 states in the nation that have not expanded Medicaid to cover people up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level.
Is that something to be proud of? That we deny health care coverage to hundreds of thousands of our struggling neighbors?
Medicaid expansion would cover more than 350,000 additional South Carolinians. A bill sponsored by Rep. Kambrell Garvin of Richland County suggests the state has lost out on $11.2 billion in federal funding between 2014 and 2020 due to state lawmakers’ refusal to expand Medicaid.
That’s $11.2 billion of our own tax dollars that would have been returned to the state to provide health-care coverage for struggling families. It would also have provided an extraordinary healthy boost to our economy, creating 44,000 jobs, according to Garvin.
Instead, our tax dollars are being used to fund Medicaid expansion in 40 other states.
This may amount to the largest and most inhumane redistribution of South Carolina’s wealth in the state’s history.
Some argue South Carolina can’t afford Medicaid expansion. But 90 percent of that expansion is paid by the federal government. If South Carolina can afford $1 billion in tax cuts, the state can afford to fund 10 percent of Medicaid expansion.
This is not a red state/blue state issue either. Several red states, even in the Deep South, have expanded Medicaid.
Isn’t it time for South Carolina to join 40 other states in investing more in the health and future of our young people?
Paul Hyde is a longtime journalist and teacher in the Upstate. He worked 18 years for the Greenville News as a columnist, editorial writer, education reporter and arts writer. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Clemson and Harvard universities. He has written for the Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News and USA Today, among other publications. He currently is a regular contributor to the Greenville Journal, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Classical Voice North America.
