Haley Barbour and the BMW-driving Medicaid queen. [View All]

[PA Democrat]

Ronald Reagan created the lie of the Cadillac-driving "welfare queen" to turn the public sentiment against welfare recipients. Now Haley Barbour creates his own nasty lie to smear Medicaid recipients:

"We have people pull up at the pharmacy window in a BMW and say they can't afford their co-payment."
--Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, Feb. 27, 2011



The Washington POst says this is a big fat lie.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2011/03/haley_barbours_medicaid_fantas.html

Mississippi provides some of the lowest Medicaid benefits to working adults in the nation. A parent who isn't working can qualify only if annual family income is less than 24 percent of the poverty line. Working parents qualify only if they make no more than 44 percent of the federal poverty level. Seniors and people with disabilities are eligible with income at 80 percent of the poverty line. Pregnant women do better -- they're eligible with income up to 185 percent of the poverty level.

Translated from the federal poverty guidelines, that means a working Mississippi couple with one child could earn no more than $8,150 a year and still qualify for Medicaid, seniors and people with disabilities could earn no more than $8,700, and a pregnant woman could earn no more than $20,000 a year.

Meanwhile, the German-engineered BMW is a pretty fancy car. Edmunds.com says that new BMW car prices range from nearly $30,000 to more than $120,000. That seems out of the price range of someone making $8,000 a year.

Checking used BMWs worth less than $5,000 in Mississippi on Yahoo Used Cars finds 10 available within 300 miles of Jackson, the state capital -- but all carrying lots of miles. Four grand, for instance, would get you a 1996 BMW 328i with 237,000 miles on it. But even that, for many of Mississippi's Medicaid recipients, would be half a year's salary.