Many people are bemoaning the current financial crisis facing most states.
We at IPI, on the other hand, tend to view it as an opportunity … for states to get their fiscal house in order.
The Kaiser Foundation recently published a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities assessment of each states’ fiscal plight. As you cans see here, 37 states plus Washington DC, are facing a total 2009 budget gap of $72 billion.
http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparetable.jsp?ind=648&cat=1&print=1
Not that you’d notice from some of the states’ recent fiscal actions. It was just over a year ago that several of the states were demanding that the Bush administration allow them to increase eligibility for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level.
Fortunately, both for good public policy and for their own fiscal well being, the administration said absolutely not—at least not until those states had 95 percent of their SCHIP-eligible children under 200 percent of the poverty level enrolled.
Had the administration not pushed back on that point, the financially strapped states might have to explain to those newly insured children why they’d be losing their coverage so soon. (Even so, we’re betting those states won’t be sending President Bush any thank you notes.)
Actually, states should view this challenge as a real opportunity.
Every state over the years creates various programs to address real or perceived needs. Over time, the justification for some programs fades away. Or more likely, it is superseded by other, perhaps more comprehensive, programs.
That means that times like these provide both opportunity and imperative to go back through a state’s various programs and look for overlaps and duplications. Find some way to merge redundant programs that still have a reason for existing, and cut out some of the funding or duplicative administrative work.
It’s time for all of us to get leaner and meaner including the states.