A few days ago, I noted an AP story on the Medicaid budget battle that was so conventional in language and construction that I found it hard to understand. I said most readers probably would not finish the account, which I described as news nobody can use.
Saturday, March 6, the Albuquerque Tribune ran a story by Gail Russell Chaddock (Christian Science Monitor) on the same topic. She did it the right way.
The key difference between Chaddock’s account and the AP’s is that her first paragraph isn’t the latest development, but rather a set-up for what follows.
She tells us that Medicaid, slated for the "single largest cut" in the Bush budget, will be the "bellwether for how Washington will cope with an increasing share of the nation’s health costs."
Her second graph explains the Bush rationale for the cut – the need to reduce the federal deficit, mostly. That leads logically to the adverse reaction of many governors in paragraph three.
And so her story proceeds, touching on Washington’s role in health care, why Medicaid is expanding so quickly, improving the states’ administrative flexibility and the governors’ need to balance their budgets.
The story ends as it started, with the tension between reducing the deficit and shredding the medical safety net.
Also, while Chaddock never gets folksy, she does write simply.
Bottom line? I learned something. In fact, I will now better understand New Mexico’s struggles with its Medicaid budget.
And while I cannot prove it, I suspect more readers who embarked on the Monitor’s story finished the voyage.