Why is this so difficult? We have an $11 billion state budget, and we're haggling over $3.3 million?

That last figure is what it would cost to continue offering Medicaid to pregnant women with low incomes whose children are afflicted with catastrophic illness or injury. And as long as we're tossing numbers around, those who now receive such aid make up just over 10,000 of Utah's 2 million-plus residents.

Such help could be curtailed starting next January if the Legislature's Executive Appropriations Committee doesn't acknowledge why those people need that help. (To be fair, that committee is working through the recommendations proffered by the Health and Human Services Appropriations Committee.)

Pregnant women need prenatal care, which helps ensure that infants will be born full-term and healthy and save thousands of dollars in health care costs if they're not.

But there's another element. Utah is one of only seven states that imposes asset tests on applicants at certain poverty levels. Right now, they can have $5,000 in assets such as bank or retirement accounts. It doesn't include homes or one vehicle. The proposal is to reduce that to $3,000; anything above that must be paid to the state to help defray its costs.

Meantime, the paperwork is difficult and time-consuming for the applicant as well as the Medicaid worker who has to sort through it all.

Worse, says Lincoln Nehring of the non-profit Utah Health Policy Project, it keeps families from becoming self-sufficient, as most families want to do.

"We're telling a new family that we don't want you to have any savings," says Nehring, the project's Medicaid policy director. "We're pretty much guaranteeing that this family's children are going to be on Medicaid."

And unable to save for education, to buy a house, to build the resources that will help families escape poverty.

It's also the notion that a tiny but immediate boost to the state budget trumps serious contemplation of the long-term consequences.

On to the Medicaid's Medically Needy Program, which helps families with woefully ill or injured kids. They might not have insurance, or have exhausted the maximum on private health insurance.

Bridger Hunt, who was grievously injured by a neighbor's homemade fireworks, racked up $3 million in medical bills. Through this program, his parents paid everything they could for his care, but still was able to keep their family business and remain self-sufficient.

Under the proposal before the Executive Appropriations Committee, the number of recipients would be cut by 4,000.

So here's my question for the Legislature: Having given ample time and talk to state's rights and the tyranny of the federal government, isn't it time to look at your constituents who need help? Isn't it time to stop blaming the poor for being poor, and finding ways to "elevate" their lives?

The last gavel falls at midnight next Wednesday.

Peg McEntee is a columnist. Reach her at pegmcentee@sltrib.com