Arizona priest in the thick of welfare reform

National Catholic Reporter, March 8, 1996 by Arthur Jones

PHOENIX, Ariz. -- Msgr. Edward Ryle holds advanced degrees and strong opinions. Recently, over breakfast, he was humourosly combative, speaking on welfare and health care reform.

"Despite the fact that so many people say it's unpatriotic to talk about class war," he said, "there's nothing like turning low-income workers against welfare recipients so they don't get mad at the people who are making out like bandits."

The monsignor, who two decades ago (1971-77) taught public policy at The Catholic University of America, knows the score. Since 1984 he has been executive director of the Arizona State Catholic Conference.

Washington in a quandary over Medicaid and welfare? Arizona's been there done that, three years ago, said Ryle. The results impress and depress him. One result, he said, is that Arizona has a "creative" health care program for the poor that other states rightly want to model. By contrast, he continued Arizona's reformed welfare system qualifies as one of the most punitive in the country.

The health care program, Arizona Health Care Cost Containment Systems, is as simple in concept as it is effective in practice, he said. Private, managed health care providers send their per patient bids to the state, offering care for the eligible Medicaid population.

The state, which wants adequate provided, awards contracts to successful bidders--not necessarily the lowest. Nearly 16 percent of Arizonans. are below the poverty line, the 11th worst state in the union, and roughly the lower one-third have access to health care under the cost-containment program.

Organizations like the state Catholic conference want to expand that coverage, particularly to the working poor. Even the conservative Arizona Republic said "increasing access to AHCCCS is not, as one camp of ideologies believes expanding welfare. It is an antiwelfare measure. Lack of health carets a primary reason families are forced from jobs with few or no benefits to the public dole."

Adds Ryle, "Because it mainstreams the poor, AHCCCS patients are sitting next to you and me in the doctor's waiting room. And the results are very, very positive. AHCCCS is the most researched program in the country," he said. "Polls show that AHCCCS patients have almost as high a satisfaction level as people under a private insurance program."

Arizona didn't get into Medicaid until 1981, said Ryle, "for fear that the feds would dump the Native American population at us instead of taking care of them through the (Bureau of Indian Affairs) health service." Mercy Care Plan, owned by Catholic hospitals in Arizona, is the state's second-largest provider for the program. Ryle chairs its board.

With Republicans controlling its House, Senate and governor's office for the first time in years, Arizona is cutting taxes--$800 million this year alone. Republicans are planning to scrap the state income tax, a move that will benefit the middle class and wealthy. They have slipped in legislation to impede future tax hikes on the 84 percent of the state's 4.1 million people not living in poverty.

A two-thirds vote in both houses is required to increase taxes, Ryle said, and current cuts come "when the Arizona economy is doing pretty well."

"When you get a downturn, as you will, and you need a two-thirds majority to raise taxes, what's going to happen?" he asked.

Recently, 500 Arizona State University students, faculty and staff marched in protest over budget cuts proposed by Gov. Fife. Symington. "Six million dollars in cuts," one student was quoted as saying, "when he's just spent $1.7 million" remodeling his office.

Charities and food banks are already petitioning the Arizona Legislature to appropriate $1.1 million for food in the face of federal cutbacks. Where do Catholics come in? "I think the bishops and the church in Arizona are seen as credible advocates for the poor," said Ryle. He said he would like to see diocesan social action offices and Catholic Charities' offices nationwide reorganize their educational efforts to emphasize "strong religious ed programs for adults on Catholic social teachings" in Catholic schools and religious education settings.

Why are voters antiwelfare?

They are, he said, apparently frustrated "that welfare hasn't done as good a job as it should have of helping people make the transition from welfare to work." States, he said, have failed to match federal funds for jobs programs.

About 1968, Ryle said, income disparity between the top 20 percent of workers and the bottom 20 percent began to grow dramatically. Simultaneously, in Washington, the wealthy got tax breaks; the poor got welfare cuts, he added.

Ryle, dean of Marywood College, Scranton, Pa., graduate school of social work from 1977 to 1984, tried to see some light in the Republican right. They're not all bad, he said. They are, he said, working on vouchers for kids to go to private and parochial schools and a bill requiring parental permission or a court order for a minor to get an abortion.

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