A New Jersey watchdog group is voicing its opposition to millions of dollars in proposed cuts to the states’ budget that aid its uninsured population, calling such measures “mean and short-sighted.”

Chris Christie

NJ Citizen Action, which bills itself as the state’s largest citizen watchdog coalition to aid state residents, has taken aim at Gov. Chris Christie’s $12.6 million in cuts to the state’s Charity Care program and $8.6 million in cuts to the NJ FamilyCare initiative.

Charity Care provides compensation to hospitals to treat uninsured patients, while NJ FamilyCare is the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program for low-income families, covering uninsured children.

As part of an executive order signed Feb. 11, Christie declared a “fiscal state of emergency in the state, cutting $2.2 billion in state spending to balance the current budget. Such an order means the state’s director of the division of budget and accounting must reserve or freeze funds at the governor’s direction, a tactic that led to criticism of Christie’s first budget presentation as governor.

In a statement, Ev Liebman, director of organizing and advocacy for NJ Citizen Action, said, “Now is not the time to cut funding for programs that provide affordable health coverage for families and children.”

Noting that NJ FamilyCare provides coverage for more than 580,000 children and more than 200,000 adults, Liebman said the group does not understand “how anyone who professes to care about the health and safety of people, particularly in tough economic times, would cut this health insurance program – it is simply mean and short-sighted to cut people off from access to affordable health coverage in the middle of a recession.”

She added that Christie’s proposal to cap parent enrollment and disqualify legal immigrant adults from the program is “bad health policy and bad fiscal policy.”

Liebman also noted the impact of Christie’s cuts to federal matching dollars.

“NJ FamilyCare is part of the federal State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which is funded through a 65% federal funding match,” she said. “Because of this high matching rate, every one dollar cut in state funds in FamilyCare results in a loss of $4.20 in business activity. Therefore, cutting this program costs New Jersey more than it saves.”

Add to the NJ FamilyCare cuts, subtractions to the budget of the Charity Care budget, Liebman said, and the result is “a one-two punch for the uninsured.

“Not only will fewer children and their parents get access to affordable health insurance, (at a time when we need it most), cutting Charity Care will result in less services for the uninsured, more hospitals closing their doors and increases on top of the already skyrocketing costs to those of us who are fortunate enough to have health insurance and subsidize care for those who don’t,” she said.