Although Dick DeVos has denied that he would cut Medicaid, it seems he still has some things in common with Matt Blunt and the Missouri GOP.
Here is Dick's original statement, as reported by the Detroit Free Press-
"Let's look at what Matt Blunt, who's the governor of Missouri did ... he said, 'We're simply going to end the program,' " DeVos said on Michigan Public Television's "Off the Record."
OK, let's take Dick up on that and look at what Matt Blunt really did. How could Missouri manage to throw 100,000 people off of Medicaid without some public uproar? According to an editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, it seems Mr. Blunt and the Missouri GOP didn't simply say "end the program". They justified it by saying this-
MISSOURI GOV. MATT BLUNT and the GOP Legislature say that one of the main reasons they are cutting Medicaid health benefits is that the program is rife with "waste, fraud and abuse." At best, this is misleading. At worse, it's a lie.
For every person who cheated to get Medicaid health coverage last year, the governor and Legislature are cutting off 400 people who didn't cheat. For every dollar lost to cheaters last year, the state is taking away $600 from honest, needy recipients.
Apparently they over-exaggerated the problem, and then went on to claim a need to "restructure" to stop the waste, fraud and abuse.
Still, GOP lawmakers repeat the misleading mantra: "waste, fraud and abuse." Writing last week in the Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian, House Speaker Rod Jetton, R-Marble Hill, described the House Medicaid measure as "a bill to substantially restructure our Medicaid system in order to reduce spending by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse."
Mr. Blunt, in his State of the State speech, also relied on waste, fraud and abuse as a predicate for the cuts. "There are well-documented instances of individuals defrauding the Medicaid system and costing taxpayers millions of dollars each year. I am committed to stopping this theft of taxpayer dollars . . .," he said.
Back to Michigan. If you ask Dick about Medicaid today, he will say something like this- (no, I'm not linking. It's under "Issues" on his campaign website)
It is clear that Michigan's current Medicaid system desperately needs reform. Today's Medicaid is no longer providing the poorest and neediest with the coverage they need. Dick's reforms will help the needy, not the greedy. Dick will provide more accountability and oversight to a system that spends much of its money on fraud, waste, and inefficiency.
In Michigan, we don't have abuse, we have "inefficiency". We also need to "reform", not restructure.
Dick DeVos. Smart enough to change a couple of the words.