from the nice-try dept

I guess it’s good to know there are still surprises left for me in this universe. We have talked about the common absurdity in which video games are blamed for all manner of things. It’s the moral panic of our time. Video games are blamed for violence, for supposed addictions, for violence, for the eventual end to the human race due to men not dating enough, and also for violence. That list isn’t exhaustive, by the way. Plenty of other things are blamed on video games beyond those, but you get the idea.

Rarely, if ever, have I heard that video games are the reason there is so much waste in Medicaid, however. And, yet, that appears to be, at least in part, the exact theory House Speaker Mike Johnson is engaging in to justify the GOP cutting into the Medicaid program despite Dear Leader claiming his adoration for the program.

“No one has talked about cutting one benefit in Medicaid to anyone who’s duly owed—what we’ve talked about is returning work requirements, so, for example, you don’t have able-bodied young men on a program that’s designed for single mothers and the elderly and disabled. They’re draining resources from people,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson last week.

“So if you clean that up and shore it up, you save a lot of money, and you return the dignity of work to young men who need to be out working instead of playing videogames all day.”

Ah, the old “nerd in Mom’s basement” routine. How droll.

Meanwhile, here are some inconvenient facts. Medicaid is a program to essentially supplement health coverage for those that can’t otherwise afford it. Recent studies indicate that something like two-thirds of the folks on Medicaid are, in fact, already employed. The majority of those that are not are folks who are typically elderly, disabled, or have life circumstances precluding them from fulltime work, such as taking care of unwell family members that have nobody else to rely on.

Are there some in the program that are taking advantage of the system? Undoubtedly. That is surely the case in every sizable system everywhere, government or otherwise. But Johnson’s work requirement will do very little other than to put the sick and elderly in the crosshairs of a government that seems to believe cruelty is the chief mechanism for governance.

But these are, again, inconvenient facts that serve only to stand in the way of Johnson’s desire to hand-wave concerns about cutting this program by invoking the demon that is video games. It’s lazy. It’s cynical.

And it’s another proof that this current government thinks we’re too stupid to know when we’re being lied to.

Filed Under: blame, medicaid, mike johnson, video games