By Editor Bob Terry
The Alabama Baptist
Thankfully the bill to establish a state-sponsored lottery in Alabama died in the Senate on Aug. 26. But it was not anti-gambling forces that killed the bill. The bill died because the pro-gambling crowd was unwilling to accept a simple state lottery.
Gambling advocates wanted to use the lottery bill as cover to expand gambling in all its forms. Rather than take their victory after both the Alabama House and Senate authorized a statewide vote on the issue, the gamblers chose to kill the bill and try another day because they did not get all they wanted in what the Legislature approved.
As suspected, there was little concern about needed funding for Alabama’s Medicaid program. Gov. Robert Bentley promoted the lottery as his solution for helping the poor and indicated that was truly his intention, but the end result proved a large number of legislators fell for the temptation to expand legalized gambling in the state.
Anti-gambling senators and House members faced an uphill fight against the state-sponsored lottery bill from the beginning and they fought valiantly. In the Senate they came within one vote of killing the bill and that was despite maneuvering by Senate leadership that was so one-sided it caused two anti-gambling senators — Dick Brewbaker, R-Montgomery, and Paul Bussman, R-Cullman — to resign from the Senate Republican Caucus.
Parliamentary ploy
On the House side, the lottery bill actually failed by two votes when voted on the first time. But a parliamentary ploy resulted in a second vote and three representatives changed their votes giving the lottery bill new life.
During the House debate, representatives sought to clarify what constitutes a lottery. You remember that Alabama has argued over the definition of bingo for more than a decade. The definition was not clarified until the Alabama Supreme Court gave a detailed definition limiting bingo to a game played on paper and not on electronic gambling machines.
The House adopted a similar amendment saying a lottery was a game played on paper. That effectively eliminates electronic gambling and those wanting to expand gambling would not have it. They wanted a definition of gambling that allowed electronic gambling at the state’s dog tracks — all under the guise of a state-sponsored lottery.
Unacceptable limits
The gamblers also wanted the bill to include casinos in Alabama that could have any gambling game that is allowed to be played at the state’s Indian-run casinos. Limiting the lottery to paper tickets was unacceptable.
That is why the bill died when it went back to the Senate for concurrence. The lottery bill was now too restrictive for what the gamblers wanted.
Despite what may have been good intentions by a few, the whole debate was mostly a charade. Medicaid was just the latest “cause of the week” behind which gamblers have stood hoping to hoodwink citizens to looking at felt needs rather than at the evils of the cure.
Cameron Smith, state programs director of R Street Institute, said in a Birmingham News column Aug. 28, “Even if we’re willing to ignore the political, economic and social problems with the various gambling options, Medicaid will simply eat that (receipts) as well within a few years. It buys us time, not a solution.”
A state-sponsored lottery is not the magic bullet for Medicaid or any of Alabama’s economic woes. It is a corrosive evil that undermines the Judeo-Christian values on which our society is built.
As Smith said, it is bad politically, economically and socially. It must be resisted.
But Alabama still faces the Medicaid crisis and it is a crisis. Medicaid patients in Alabama face cutbacks in many important services, cutbacks in physicians treating Medicaid patients, loss of drug coverage for adults and more.
Brewton pediatrician Marsha Raulerson, a member of First Baptist Church, Brewton, eloquently described the negative impacts of Medicaid cutbacks on her practice in an article in the Aug. 18 issue of The Alabama Baptist (visit www.thealabamabaptist.org and search “Marsha Raulerson”). Multiply her descriptions by the number of Medicaid-accepting physicians in the state and one begins to recognize the importance of this issue.
Census data shows 19.3 percent of the nearly 4.9 million people in Alabama live in poverty which is defined as an income for a family of four of $24,300 annually. More than 1 in 4 (28 percent) of Alabama’s children live in poverty. Alabama is the sixth poorest state in the nation.
Medicaid is important to our state and will continue to be important. A solution to the funding problem must be found. It seems proceeds from the BP oil spill might be part of the immediate answer but that is a stopgap measure and not a long-term solution.
Some elected officials seem hesitant to tackle the problem long term because they know Medicaid will need funding that exceeds the state’s present income levels. Some of these officials refuse to examine additional income solutions because they believe any new taxes or fees could cost them at the ballot box.
How long?
But how long will it be before Alabamians demand that problems be solved and not just kicked down the road? How long before citizens say they are willing to pay a little more if important services like Medicaid can be ensured?
Alabama has a problem with Medicaid funding. A state lottery is not the answer. At best it is another Band-Aid solution and Alabama is beyond the time for more Band-Aids. We need responsible leadership from elected officials to examine our entire tax and fee system with a goal of finding a fair and just state revenue structure that provides adequate funding for necessary services.
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