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John Daley ReportingThe federal government's severe budget woes are getting handed down to states, hitting programs supporting some of Utah's neediest people. Case in point is the program that funds health care for the poor, Medicaid.
With the federal budget in dire straits, one group taking it on the chin are the low-income who get medical benefits through Medicaid. Despite lobbying state lawmakers to restore funding, they were unable to restore $5 million dollars for vision and dental. Today we spoke with a group of Medicaid recipients.
Each has vision and or dental problems, lives on less than 750 dollars a month,and depends on that Medicaid benefit to get by.
Betsy Ogden, Medicaid Recipient: "It's just not fair what they're doing up there. You know they're going to be cutting the Medicaid dental after June 1, and I don't know where I'm going to be."
Darla Ball, Medicaid Recipient: "I can hardly make it on what I get."
Douglas Cotant, Salt Lake City Resident: "Funding human needs is much more important than building roads."
Without the five million dollars, 68,000 Utahns will lose that Medicaid benefit July 1st.
Bill Tibbitts, Anti-Hunger Action Committee: "I think Utah and this country have a health care crisis. There are 300,000 Utahns who don't have health insurance, 46 million Americans who don't have health insurance."
Bill Germundson, Low-Income Organizer, Anti-Hunger Action Committee: "It's going to be a disaster. There'll be ever more increasing health care costs."
Lawmakers say they are deeply troubled by the federal cuts and will study what to do.
Rep. David Clark, (R) Santa Clara: "There's a real concern as we see the federal government shifting significant portions of programs back onto the back of the state."
Louanne Stevenson, Medicaid Recipient: "I have different chronic illness and I have to have Medicaid to keep me alive."
Lawmakers say last year federal cuts forced Utah to make up a 20 million gap. This year it's 30 million plus, a looming crisis that promises to hit the poor hardest.
Low-income advocates are urging those on Medicaid who have dental and vision troubles to try to get help now, before July 1st when the funding runs out.
