Dennis Smith: From the Heritage Foundation to the Wisconsin Dept. of Health Services | Autonomous Solidarity Organization

Dennis Smith: From the Heritage Foundation to the Wisconsin Dept. of Health Services | Autonomous Solidarity Organization

Home » Dennis Smith: From the Heritage Foundation to the Wisconsin Dept. of Health Services
Dennis Smith: From the Heritage Foundation to the Wisconsin Dept. of Health Services
Submitted by thomasmbird on Sat, 03/26/2011 - 14:02

In a statement released on January 25th, 2011, Dennis Smith offered the following:

“I would like to thank Governor Scott Walker for the honor and privilege of joining his Administration as Secretary of the Department of Health Services. I also want to thank Senator Vukmir for her leadership of the Senate Health Committee as well as all of the Committee members; Senators Galloway, Moulton, Erpenbach and Carpenter and all of the Senate leadership members for their courtesy and support. I look forward to a successful working relationship with all members of the state legislature – especially the health care related committees.

There is no question that these are challenging times but we are ready to meet these challenges head on. I have dedicated my career to public service and I am proud to have the opportunity to serve the people of the great state of Wisconsin.”

While this appears to be a relatively normal statement released by a newly appointed public official, the implications of Dennis Smith taking this position deserve serious consideration. This statement was accompanied by a brief history of Dennis Smith’s employment:

“Dennis Smith previously served as the head of the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services under Secretaries Tommy G. Thompson and Michael Leavitt. Smith has also worked as Medicaid director in the Commonwealth of Virginia and as Chief of Planning for the California Department of Developmental Services.”

One interesting omission in this history of Dennis Smith’s employment is the time he spent as a Senior Fellow in the Center for Health Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. As a Senior Fellow, Smith wrote extensively on government-run health insurance programs, something extremely relevant to his new position. Let us now begin looking into Dennis Smith’s published writings on Medicaid and how they are relevant to his new position.

Attacks on Medicaid and Medicare from the Heritage Foundation are largely based on misleading, intellectually dishonest arguments. Arguments against these programs are almost exclusively fiscal in nature, claiming we cannot afford to operate these programs. It is a noteworthy argument once one considers that, for example in the 2010 Federal Budget, Medicare and Medicaid combined cost $793 billion while the Defense Department alone was allotted $693 billion. Total spending on military efforts brings this figure closer to a trillion dollars. You can spend days reading through The Heritage Foundation’s statements on how unaffordable these healthcare programs are, yet the subject of why such defense spending is necessary is strangely given less attention. These fiscal arguments are only remotely reasonable if considered in a vacuum, in which no other aspect of federal spending or taxation could be adjusted.

More specifically, some of Dennis Smith’s work at the Heritage Foundation attacks Medicaid under the misleading argument that those in Medicaid would be better off with no insurance at all.
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