BuckeyeBlog

As the editors of the Cleveland Plain Dealer point out here, Medicaid’s burden on Ohio’s taxpayers is growing:

Medicaid enrollment by Ohioans has risen by 27,488 people since July 1, with roughly 16 percent of the new patients in the most expensive category (elderly, blind or disabled).

Thus, overall Medicaid spending is up sharply. From July 1 through Oct. 31, Ohio spent $3.97 billion on Medicaid. For the 2007 period, the tab was $3.62 billion. That’s a 9.7 percent increase — and a cold welcome for spenders’ letters to Santa Claus, care of Strickland’s Statehouse workshop.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. I predicted as much here:

Expanding Medicaid can lead to large increases in Medicaid spending when states can least afford it – during recessions. Ohio saw this earlier this decade when Medicaid spending increased dramatically during the recent recession. Spending grew at 11 percent annually during 2001 and 2004, squeezing other budget priorities at a time when the state was seeing reduced revenue. Expanding Medicaid now will only repeat this cycle during the next recession.

That “next recession” is now. Of course, the expansion pushed by the governor and approved by the General Assembly last year has been stalled by the federal government. Imagine what Medicaid would be costing if it actually took effect. We may not have to imagine, as Governor Strickland is pushing the feds to approve the expansion. When Senator Obama assumes the Presidency, it’s likely that Strickland will get his wish. That means even higher Medicaid spending next year.

A lot of people got their tighty-whities in a bunch simply over the thought that Ohio Workers Comp funds were being put into a rare coin fund. (We won’t get into the issues of access-buying and the rest, but the scandal started over outrage over the investment choice…)

Now the Wall Street Journal ($) reports that with stocks tanking many investors are ”seeking refuge in unusual alternatives — parking spaces, for instance, and condos in Peru. Sales of exotic livestock are up. The U.S. Mint has seen a gold-coin rush.” [My italics.]

I wanted to see how much of the multi-billion dollar Workers Comp fund was invested in AIG just to put the investment returns on rare coins into a context with one more politically acceptable alternative.

Ah, but of course the voters of Ohio still can’t easily look over the work of their elected officials. I spent 15 minutes on the BWC site, a reasonable amount of time for an ordinary citizen to have to spend in looking up how $22 billion of state assets were kept. I never came close to finding out this information despite the site’s frequent claims of greater transparency brought by the Strickland Administration’s control of this state monopoly.

If anyone more adept at BWC’s data sources has this information, please do share!

Much will be made of Strickland/Fisher “leadership” in convincing the SEIU to pull the sick leave mandate measure off the ballot.

The real reason SEIU pulled the measure is that the Sam’s Club demographic targeted for turnout motivation by it is now far too McCain-Palin friendly.  Can you image the kitchen table conversations in Reynoldsburg, Ohio?  “Honey, who would most likely share our values? A war hero and hockey mom, or, two Washington-loving, blowhard Senators? By the way, don’t forget to write your sister in Iraq and I’ll get Jimmie and Susy from soccer tonight…”  Even Keith Oberman could figure out how this choice will play out.

For the uninitiated, SIEU’s ponderous, anti-entreprenurial ballot proposal for a new paid absence benefit mandate on business would have further estranged Ohio’s limp economy from the dynamism of American free enterprise. It would have benefited no one but SEIU bosses and cost Ohioans jobs, income and prosperity.

Its demise is an early benefit to Ohio of the McCain-Palin ticket.

Once SEIU saw its plan backfiring, threatening to turn out voters intent on voting for real change in Washington, it had no choice but to pull the plug on the proposal.  SEIU was no more pushed into this than Marc Dann was pushed out by Strickland (remember, it took the GOP General Assembly raising the spectre of Inspector General engagement to pry Dann out of office — he wasn’t going anywhere until Husted and Harris played this card).

Contrary to the spin that will be put out, this was, and is, all about Democrat/Union political gaming.

The Plain Dealer reports that prominent Democrats are calling for Jimmy Dimora to resign his position as county Democratic chairman in light of an investigation that centers on him and Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo. Although these “prominent Democrats” aren’t named, Governor Ted Strickland isn’t one of them. He says that it wouldn’t be “appropriate” for him to ask Dimora to resign.

Strickland’s reticence on this is amazing. Here he has a powerful Democratic Party county chairman who is also a county commissioner who is under federal investigation for a rash of financial improprieties and other misbehavior. A few months ago we had an Attorney General some of you may remember named Marc Dann. It was alleged Dann did some bad things, too — sexual harassment and an affair with a subordinate. No one investigated Dann for funneling money to his cronies or for getting free work done at his residence or for the systematic abuse of power that seems to be pervasive in Cuyahoga County. But for his relatively minor transgressions Dann faced a united Democratic front — led by Governor Strickland — who called for his resignation.

So why is the case of Dimora and Russo any different? Dann wasn’t under indictment, only under investigation, just like Russo and Dimora. But Dann’s alleged crimes pale in comparison to the alleged crimes of Dimora and Russo. The governor was correct in asking Dann to resign. I’m curious as to why he seems to have lost his zeal for ethical behavior in the Dimora and Russo case.

While the state’s main papers seem oblivious to the scandal unfoding in Cuyahoga County, at least some members of the media are asking why Governor Strickland is treating this differently than the Marc Dann episode. From the Hillsboro Times Gazette:

Shortly after former Attorney General Marc Dann held a news conference in May to answer questions about a sexual harassment scandal involving a top aide, the response from Democrats was quick and forceful: resign or be impeached.

Yet two weeks have passed since the FBI in Cleveland raided the offices and homes of Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy DiMora and Auditor Frank Russo, and the Democratic Party’s response has been muted.

The party issued an initial statement that the two men should be held accountable if there was wrongdoing, but has not supplied the almost daily pressure it did with Dann.

The FBI seized documents related to fundraising, travel and deals with contractors in the searches, which were also conducted at local businesses with county contracts.

What explains the differences in the party’s reactions to the developing scandals? After all, neither Dann, who did eventually resign, nor DiMora or Russo, have been charged with any crimes.

The answer? Politics:

(more…)

The Cleveland Plain Dealer published another article yesterday about the unfolding corruption scandal in Cuyahoga County. It’s too bad that the Columbus Dispatch isn’t doing more to investigate this issue, considering the potential impact this will have on the state.

From the Plain Dealer:

The note in Frank Russo’s office about a $20,000 payment. The paperwork for a downtown condo that Jimmy Dimora might have shared with friends. The meals and trips a county worker received from contractors.

Federal agents knew what to look for and where to find it during raids last week on Russo, the county auditor, and Dimora, a county commissioner and Democratic Party chief, and several contractors.

The details of how the investigation began and what it was based on may not come out for months — if not years — as investigators have to plow through thousands of boxes of paperwork taken in the raids. No criminal charges have been filed.

But former prosecutors and federal agents who have worked public corruption cases in the past — and defense attorneys scrambling to answer grand jury subpoenas for their clients’ records — said the documents give a glimpse of how the investigation may have unfolded to this point.

They said the minute details found in records — the note in Russo’s office, pictures of Dimora with county worker Rosemary Vinci, gifts, campaign literature and casino chips — show the investigation probably started years ago and included informants close to the men, some of whom probably recorded conversations.

So the feds have been looking at this for years, possibly? There certainly seems to be a strong suspicion among the feds that these two men misused their office. According to Governor Strickland, though, the state shouldn’t investigate, too. While nothing has been proven and no charges filed, I find it hard to believe that there aren’t grounds for the state to at least begin looking into this situation. I wonder what the governor would be saying if these two men had an “R” after their name instead of a “D”?

Raided

Where is the New York Times on the Cuyahoga County corruption story? By my count this morning there were 17,000 hits for “Ted Stevens” in the NY TImes site for the past seven days (yes, 17,000, counting all articles, blogs and comments) and nothing for “Dimora“.

Now I get it that a Senator may be a bigger target than a Midwestern Commish for the national media, and perhaps our expectations for the ethics of the US Senate are greater than those we hold for a county position.

Still, we are talking about a county that is home to one of America’s poorest cities, one plagued by all kinds of evils the lefties ascribed to too little government, such as unemployment and the mortgage meltdown. A county that is the political cornerstone to a Democratic victory in Ohio and thus nationally in the November presidential election. A county that is nearly twice the size of Alaska in terms of population.

17,300 cites to 0 is simply out of whack, but then again, it is the New York Times.

BTW, Cuyahoga County also costs all of the honest, hard-working taxpayers of the rest of Ohio dearly to support. So that’s why it is also disconcerting about the silence of our Governor Ted Strickland on this issue, and our new Attorney General Nancy Rogers. Where’s the outrage over the foul smell of offenses which draw in 200 federal agents from across two states to investigate?

Forget this nonsense put up by Strickland about leaving this all to the FBI and the feds. Think of all of the times you’ve read of state and local authorities, smelling blood in the water, jump into cases looking for their own chance at a pound of flesh, like Michael Vick facing VA charges after the federal case was prosecuted. Any good prosecuting authority can figure out how to get into a game as good as this one is.

And then there’s Marc Dann, whose impeachment Strickland, et al. were jonesing so hard after. Not because Dann had been found to have done anything “impeachable”, but because, well, Marc had been kind of a slob in running his office.

Where is the alacrity in running Dimora and Russo out of office shown by Strickland in the Dann Affair?

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has done a great job in covering this story and should be commended for pursuing accountability of government to the people so vigorously. Too bad other media outlets in Ohio and nationally aren’t following suit. Yet.

The Columbus Dispatch reports:

State regulators have failed to eliminate by today, as promised, the backlog of requests from Medicaid patients for wheelchairs and other medical supplies. 

But the problem isn’t as bad as it was.

There were fewer cases pending yesterday than on July 20 when The Dispatch detailed the 16,000-case backlog and hardship it had created for a teenager with cerebral palsy who had been waiting two years for a new wheelchair.

Keep this backlog in mind when you hear Governor Strickland pushing to expand eligibility in the program. Medicaid can’t serve those who are already enrolled in it. Is it really a good idea to stretch its resources (i.e., your tax money) even further?

The Warren Tribune Chronicle had a great editorial today that should be read by all policyamakers. Its title? Ohio Needs to Cut Burdensome Regulations:

The Dayton Daily News reports that there are some folks in Ohio who are eligible for Medicaid but are waiting to get on the rolls:

A backlog has placed 16,000 Ohio residents in an administrative limbo while they fight to receive Medicaid benefits from the state.

Services for Ohio’s poor, disabled and blind are in short supply and the lines are long. Administrative processes take months — sometimes years — to navigate, leaving in-need residents frustrated or suffering.

Quite a few states have waiting lists for people with disabilities. I think a lot of us would probably agree that providing care for people with disabilities who live in poverty is a legitimate function of the Medicaid program. The fact that these folks can’t receive service in Ohio and other states indicates (to me, at least) that Medicaid should stop trying to provide care for the middle class and instead focus on the truly needy.

Of course, in Ohio the Democratic governor and the Republican General Assembly approved a plan to expand the program to middle class kids. Perhaps they should take care of the folks on the waiting list before they try and dilute the program’s resources any further.

Crossposted at State House Call.