For Medicaid, Cuccinelli is the Hero not the Villain

I'm not mad, Terry...I'm disappointed.

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa, guy. That's pretty compelling. Does Ken Cuccinelli actually want to do away with Medicaid and Social Security? Much like the other claims that the McAuliffe camp has made, this requires some verification. 

To begin with, admittedly, the commercial is more professionally done than I expected. All of that out-of-state money can really buy some production value. I can't speak much on...you know...if there is even cursory validity in the statement that it makes, but at least Terry didn't misspell anything.

Sadly, though, it took all of two days for even the Washington Post to rate the claims that this article made FALSE, giving it three well-deserved Pinocchios. Along with FactCheck.org, the WaPo uncovered that this is the textbook definition of petty cherry picking.

When it comes to Medicaid, Ken Cuccinelli is the only one who has a leg to stand on.
As AG, Ken has led what has been called the "one of the...most effective Medicaid fraud units in the nation" by the Richmond Academy of Medicine(RAM). Cuccinelli's MFCU(Medicaid Fraud Control Unit) makes sure that the Medicaid program is run properly and with integrity. The RAM notes "Medicaid fraud takes place in some surprising venues, and ultimately it‘s the most vulnerable and poorest people who lose out." In 2011 they opened nearly 150 cases in Virginia against those accused of trying to con the system.

As recently as June, pressure from the AG's office on the Federal government got Virginia a well-deserved 115 million dollars to continue protecting Virginia's Medicaid recipients and enforcing the law. Instead of spending his time on attacks, Ken uses the AG's office to help the people of Virginia that honestly rely on Medicaid and other programs for their quality of life.

The unit is about more than just fraud. They employ special nurse investigators that specifically investigate allegations of senior abuse in nursing homes, as well as going after unscrupulous medical employees trying to scam the system with phantom charges and fraudulent billing. They prosecute in civil and criminal court, and they work harder on a smaller budget than any other unit like them in the nation. Let's get that straight, Terry. You can't just go around trying to scare the populous into taking one sentence in a book out of context.

Later in the same book, Cuccinelli clarifies the point that he was originally making. According to himself:

“The Last Line of Defense,” pages 237-238: A simple example of how private-sector spending increases economic growth more than government spending does would be a business that smartly spends $100 and expects to earn that amount back plus a return on its investment, so it turns $100 into, let’s say, $115. That’s economic growth. 

In contrast, despite how many times you may hear politicians talk about “investments” in government programs, government spends very little on what you could call “investments” that result in economic growth. For example, in 2011, the biggest programs in the federal government were Social Security (20 percent of the budget), national defense (20 percent), and Medicare (13.5 percent). There is no monetary return on these investments in any traditional business sense (that is, one invests money with a goal of getting a return in the form of interest, income or appreciation in value), although there are obviously other reasons America spends money on these programs.

I’m not questioning here the existence of these programs nor the wisdom of how much money is spent on them. What I’m trying to illustrate is that most dollars that government spends do not create economic growth but instead take money out of the hands of the people who do create economic growth.

So after lying(again) to Virginians about the true nature of this election, your feeble and false attacks have(again) been proven to be shallow tripe that is not worthy of Virginians' attention. Instead of talking about the jobs we need, the roads that we need, or the education that our children need, you pit one sentence in a book against a career record of standing up for Medicaid recipients.

Lying doesn't cut it, Terry. Misleading the public doesn't cut it. 

When will you start campaigning on your own laurels (what few and rotten they are), rather than tilting at straw men you conjure up and wave in the face of the public?  

VA GOP Caucus

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