Officials worry Medicaid could rob tobacco funds

McCOOK, Neb. -- The latest effort to expand Medicaid at the state level in Nebraska could end up taking its funding from other regional healthcare programs, at least according to one state senator.

District 44 State Sen. Dan Hughes said Thursday recent modifications to a bill targeting Medicaid expansion would take some $60 million a year from the tobacco settlement fund, money which is already allocated to programs like the Southwest Nebraska Public Health Department in McCook.

Sen. Hughes said the funds were not new revenue by any stretch and any program being funded by tobacco settlement money should take notice.

"If you're being funded by tobacco settlement funds you could be impacted," he said.

Sen. Hughes anticipated the bill, LB 1032, would be debated by state legislators in the coming days.

Southwest Nebraska Public Health Department Director Myra Stoney said her agency was very concerned with where the funding was coming from, but ultimately supported LB 1032 as a life saving measure.

She said any funds taken out of the Nebraska Health Care Cash Fund, which receives tobacco settlement payments, would need to be replenished.

"Our thoughts are an increase in the tobacco tax, which also saves lives," said Stoney.

Stoney elaborated on her life saving references by explaining it stemmed from uninsured Nebraska residents skipping preventative care measures due to affordability. "When you have to choose whether to put food on the table or buy something for your children, versus $300 in preventive screening, the preventive screening usually does not happen. Science proves that prevention saves lives. Yet in America, emphasis has been placed on spending money to treat the chronic diseases, such as cancer and heart disease and very little money on prevention," she said.

LB1032 would help those residents obtain health insurance and increase the number of preventive screenings, according to Stoney. "Survival rates increase the faster you catch the health issue. Thus you save lives."