The Finance Committee health care reform bill would extend Medicaid eligibility to 133% of the Federal Poverty Level (the HELP Committee bill would extend it to 150% FPL).
What does a 44.2% enrollment increase mean for the state’s Medicaid program which is expected to lose $1.5 billion this year from 2009 budget cuts, will receive $440 million less from the federal government next year, and has already been forced to make significant and unpopular cuts to mental health spending and elderly care services?
These bills force all Medicaid-eligible citizens into this rotten plan with no other option. Obama said all Americans would have choice. Therefore, it seems that the uniquely American national mandated health insurance is a class-based system in which low-income citizens are not deserving of choice. This is blatant discrimination.
This also means that pursuant to OBRA 1993, citizens auto-enrolled in Medicaid against their will who are age 55 and up will be subject to the federally required estate recovery program which takes assets upon death to pay for benefits received. Hospital and RX are required but a state can take any and all other costs for medical care.
Obama said mandated health insurance, not a mandated LOAN. This is clearly exploitation of a certain segment of the population. It is unconscionable.
Obama also said all American could keep their doctors and have a choice. Not so for those who are dumped into Medicaid. Typically, office-based practices do not accept Medicaid patients, and many millions will not only have great difficulty in finding a good doctor, they will not have choice and will lose doctors who have been treating them.
This is not health care reform. It is an abomination. The word reform means change to remove abuse. No choice for low-income taxpayers and auto-enrollment against their will most certainly fits the definition of abuse.
Coercion is deliberate violence and is inhumane. –Ghandhi
You won’t find estate recovery in the actual bills or subsequent mandated health insurance law b/c it is OBRA 1993. However, because Medicaid and the expansion thereof is an integral part of these bills, estate recovery is part and parcel.
They know about this in the various committees. A Kennedy aide said they aren’t concerned about this b/c very few citizens will know and those who do are the minority. Another aide in one of the committees said: If you don’t want to be in Medicaid, get a better job. Otherwise, too bad for you.
Another aide and a U.S. Rep from Georgia said during a town hall: We didn’t revamp Medicaid. Wrong. They did revamp Medicaid by increasing the FPL limits, the age, by allowing childless adults in and by dropping the asset test. More estates, eh?
And this discriminates in and of itself against those who own property and/or have savings, annuties or other assets and those who do not. It discriminates by age and also by state b/c some recover the minimum, some the maximum and some a mix.
Gee, Obama didn’t mention this revenue stream in any of his speeches.
This is unconscionable and downright ugly.