More Compact Fun

According to a News Report that I have managed to lose a link to, the migrants under the Compact of Free Association have now lost a lot of their state funded Medicaid benefits.

Like every other state, Hawaii is facing a budget shortfall. Many services will have cuts, and state workers face furloughs or layoffs. However, the Compact Migrants' situation is unique.

First, unlike others, Hawaii leaves no money on the table dropping them. These migrants are treated like any other immigrant group. They do not qualify for a federal match (called FMAP) in Medicaid. As a result QUEST (the Medicaid Managed Care Program in Hawaii) must pay for all expenses.

While there is some weird political trouble with any "immigration" issue, as I have stated before, the compact migrants are unique. Essentially they are like legal permanent residents (LPRs), and can freely enter the country, work, and avail themselves of social services. They pay taxes too.

However, unlike any other group, including LPRs, which they are most analogous too, the federal government does not pay for compact migrants' services. Under welfare reform, and part of the conservative loves of block grants that are too small, they give states a block grant, which fails to cover these services.

Oddly enough, these same people who refuse to pay for the migrants also demanded the treaty in the first place, to use these Pacific Islands as Pacific forward basing locations. These hawks also tend to act as deficit hawks of the worst kind, not looking for solutions to balance the budget, but cutting it in a haphazard way. Essentially they said, you give us something valuable and we will let you come here, but you really get nothing if you come to the U.S. except to escape your island sinking into the ocean because of climate change.

So that's that. It's kind of sad watching this happen. Sadly too, I do not think anyone talks about them in this healthcare debate.