Back to The Newsroom

TN Governor Bredesen -- June 11, 2005

Click here to listen to the Radio Address.

Nashville, TN – Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen will deliver the Democratic Radio Address tomorrow, June 11, 2005. Like his fellow Democratic Governors, Gov. Bredesen has innovative ideas for solving problems that plague citizens across the country. In tomorrow’s Radio Address, Gov. Bredesen will outline three common-sense principles for addressing the Medicaid crisis.

Governors have been struggling alike to provide health care coverage for their neediest citizens. As Governor Bredesen says, “The challenge of Medicaid is an American issue that demands a coordinated national response.”

Governor Bredesen will lead a Newsmaker event at the National Press Club on Friday, June 24. He will discuss thoughtful approaches to health care policy and urge bipartisanship to solve our nation’s problems.

Text of Democratic Radio Address by Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen

EMBARGOED UNTIL SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 2005, 11:06 AM EST

Good morning, this is Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen.

This is a challenging time in America. Homeland security. The economy. Social Security. There’s no shortage of issues to debate and problems to solve. But as the governor of Tennessee—in the Heartland of our country—I want to say that we all need to stay focused on another challenge as well, one that is a significant issue for virtually every governor in America—and that is the basic financial stability of a program that today provides health coverage to nearly 60 million Americans.

I’m talking about Medicaid, the state and federal insurance plan for people with low incomes. Uncontrolled growth in the cost of Medicaid is a crisis that’s forcing states to choose between quality health care on one hand and a quality education for our children on the other.

I’m a Democrat. But the challenge of Medicaid is not a Democratic or Republican issue. The challenge of Medicaid is an American, bipartisan issue that demands a coordinated national response.

Here in Tennessee, we’re in a unique and uncomfortable position. We have the most generous Medicaid program in the country, TennCare, which provides health coverage to one in four of our citizens — more than any other state. Not surprisingly, we’re spending a third of our budget on Medicaid — again, more than any other state. Between flaws in the design of the program and federal court consent decrees and soaring health care costs in general, there has been no end in sight.

The reality is: Medicaid is squeezing us beyond our ability to support it. So to protect our state’s financial stability, Tennessee was forced two weeks ago to pass a budget that includes reductions, in both enrollment and benefits, for adults on Medicaid. We have been able to preserve coverage for all children.

Tennessee is not alone. In Missouri and Pennsylvania and Ohio, for example, Governors Blunt and Rendell and Taft also are being forced to reduce enrollment and benefits. Our neighbors in Mississippi are struggling; as is my colleague Jennifer Granholm in Michigan.

So how do we solve the problem? Let’s scrap the old, inefficient version of Medicaid that’s led us to spend more and more of our finite resources on a system that never yielded the kind of public health results we’d hoped for. Instead, let’s launch a new version: Medicaid 2.0.

Here are three basic ideas for Medicaid 2.0:

No. 1: Everybody pays something. Imagine shopping at a store where nothing has a price tag and you never get a bill. You’d spend a lot more than you do now. But this is exactly how Medicaid works today. Until there’s a little economic tension … until everyone has a little skin in the game—the system will continue to be inefficient.

No. 2: Pay for the important things first. What my mother called heartburn and took Pepto-Bismol for is now called acid reflux disease, and the little purple pill is a billion-dollar industry. Medicaid 2.0 needs to pare down what it pays for so that everyone has access to basic health care before we bring in the fancy trimmings. A Chevy for everyone before a Cadillac for anyone.

Finally, No. 3: Pay for what works. I recently saw a report that in 2002, the FDA approved 78 new drugs. Only seven contained new active ingredients that were improvements over existing medications. Yet in many states, Medicaid has continued to pay for these new and more expensive drugs. We need to start exercising common sense in our purchasing decisions — just like the American consumer does.

Three thoughts for Medicaid 2.0: Everybody pays something. Pay for the important things first. Pay for what works.

Successful families have some things in common: one of those things is that they figure out how much money they have coming in, and then allocate that money to the things that are important to them in a sensible way; so much for rent, so much for food, so much for vacations, so much for education. Americans should expect their government to do the same. If we apply this common sense principle to Medicaid, we can devise a system that will serve the neediest Americans well for decades to come.

This is Phil Bredesen, the Democratic governor of Tennessee, and I thank you for listening.

###

Copyright & Paid for by The Democratic Governors Association

A Bullseye Project