Want to know more about the latest Medicaid budget controversy? You’ll learn more sitting in your back yard and listening to the crickets.

by James A. Bacon

Today we read in the Virginia Mercury the alarming headline that Governor Glenn Youngkin and other Republican governors have signed a letter supporting a congressional budget bill “that would cut billions from Medicaid.”

After providing some background about the overall budget bill and the politics swirling around it, the article goes on to highlight Democratic Party talking points about Medicaid. It quotes U.S. Rep. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, warning that taking people off Medicaid will push them into emergency rooms, shifting costs to others. The article also quotes Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Abigail Spanberger as asserting that thousands of Virginians “will lose their healthcare because of this bill.”

Ironically, the letter Youngkin signed doesn’t even mention Medicaid. The thrust of the letter is to support the inanely named One Big Beautiful Bill, which will “save taxpayers $1.6 trillion over the next ten years.”

But saving Medicaid is the Democrats’ messaging strategy, so that’s what the Mercury goes with. The Republican-backed budget, reports the news outlet, would cut Medicaid by $625 billion over the next ten years. By contrast, Democrats want to protect the poor.

How do citizens sift through the conflicting claims? There is so much we need to know.

For instance:

How much federal funding for Virginia’s Medicaid program does the commonwealth stand to lose from the Republicans’ bill?

Crickets.

How much did federal and state Medicaid spending surge during the COVID epidemic, and has it fallen back to pre-COVID levels? Are the Medicaid “cuts” even cuts or a reversion to historical norms?

Crickets.

Addressing McClellan’s main point, how many Medicaid patients are receiving primary care now compared to before Virginia expanded its Medicaid program in 2019?

A related question: How many primary care physicians are accepting Medicaid payments (which notoriously fails to reimburse their costs) now compared to 2019?

Another related question: How much are emergency room visits up or down?

Crickets. Crickets. Crickets.

If Medicaid-reimbursed trips to emergency rooms have declined, as predicted, has that translated into Medicaid savings for Virginia taxpayers?

Crickets.

Addressing Spanberger’s point, how many Virginians would lose their Medicaid funding under the proposed congressional budget?

Crickets.

After knowing how many would lose benefits under the GOP budget, one might want to know who would lose them. Poor women and children? Working males? People earning poverty-level incomes, or people above the poverty income?

Crickets.

Admittedly, the following questions are beyond the ability of most legacy-media journalists to conceptualize but let me ask them anyway.

What evidence exists to suggest that Virginia’s Medicaid expansion has actually improved medical outcomes for Virginia’s poor?

Crickets.

How do trends in Medicaid patient outcomes compare to those of Medicare and private-pay patients over the past decade?

More crickets.

Could the funds “invested” in Virginia’s Medicaid expansion have yielded better patient outcomes if spent in other ways?

A veritable symphony of crickets, with katydids and cicadas joining in.

The current Medicaid-funding controversy may be the worst informed public-policy coverage I have seen in my nearly half century of journalism. Virginians have zero context and zero data with which to make informed opinions.

I’m singling out the Virginia Mercury in this post, but my condemnation extends to all media across the board. Virginians might as well just cut out the middleman and go directly to Democratic and Republican sources for their talking points. We’d be just as well informed.