This is why hospitals, especially rural hospitals, are dependent on Medicaid:
o 40% of all children are covered by Medicaid
o 60% of nursing home residents (the oldest and sickest among us)
o 40% of people with disabilities, including some vets
o 50% of all births
o 51% of all long term care spending
o Over 50% of mental health and drug rehabilitation
Ending or even cutting Medicaid would be a disaster for a large portion of Americans who can't care for themselves.
"First, he’s probably betting that it’s better to keep party promises than to buckle to majority sentiment. Republicans vowed for years to repeal and replace Obamacare. By stitching together a deal that aims to meet the demands of conservative and centrist Republican senators, Mr. McConnell can claim the bill as an unalloyed win for conservative voters. It cuts taxes on the wealthy, ends government mandates and slashes entitlements — a dream come true for the ideological right.
Second, the bill delivers the goodies now and kicks costs down the road. Mr. McConnell has engineered a deeply cynical, but not uncommon, legislative move: The bill cuts taxes immediately and retroactively, but it pushes draconian health care cuts for the poor and disabled into the future. It is a classic case of Edward Tufte’s “myopic policy for myopic voters.” Mr. McConnell gambles that by delaying the downside to 2020 and beyond, he can muffle and deflect blame when voters hit the polls in 2018.
Third, he’s clearing the deck for tax reform. Republicans prefer to spend their time on taxes, not health care. Under normal Senate rules, action on both issues requires votes from Democratic senators, a tall order in polarized times. Instead, Republicans have submitted to arcane budget rules that let them pass bills with a simple majority, i.e., without the Democrats. But there’s a catch: There’s only one set of tracks that can carry these sorts of filibuster-proof measures, and the rules allow only one train car on the tracks at a time. Granted, Republican cleavage has thus far precluded any progress on taxes. But until health care is off their plate and budgeteers can prepare the next bill, tax reform is stuck in the rail yard."
All they need to do is repeal the individual and business mandates and be done with it.
about the poor and wish the program serves the poor well as it was designed, please support to restore it as a safety-net program for the poor so that the program can focus on its core functions. That means you have to scale back eligibility and stop expansion.
...now that he can afford an $8M manse.
(no message)
at least $140 billion a year in fraud? Were millions dying in the streets?
(no message)
(no message)
(no message)
.
And yeah some just died. That's a fact.
No free lunch partner. What do you want to do as a society?
WWJD?
(no message)
(no message)
...all paid for with blue collar, working-class taxes.
Yep...that's a great solution.
(no message)
(no message)
(no message)
(no message)
(no message)
Don't treat them. Treat them on an emergent basis when needed and eat the bill. Give them some type of medical coverage.
What else?
they were bought out by competing hospital organizations, consolidating overhead and getting rid of redundant employees. Over the years, each city went from 3 hospitals to one but with a higher level of care (and expense) and no real loss of beds or treatment. The other thing that has dramatically changed over the past 25 years is the family structure. It used to be common for families to take care of elderly members, today not so much. My grandparents moved in with my parents when they needed care- both in their late 70's. My parents did the same with myself and my brother. That was the natural order of things where I lived but those days are about over- now the elderly are dumped on the taxpayers while their kids wash their hands of them. I stand by my position that throwing over half a trillion dollars a year (25% of it gone to fraud and ALL of it borrowed by we taxpayers from the labors of our children and yet to be born grandchildren) is criminal.
their elders. Which is why society has to step in.
(no message)
Means test benefits, remove cap on earnings subject to tax and also tax unearned income at the same rate as earned income for Medicare.
because every patient that walks into a hospital (or is birthed there) is a loss. Sure, some money for a patient visit is better than no money, but if 50%+ of a hospitals patient base is medicaid insured, the hospital will close its doors... because they lose money on every medicaid patient and break even on every Medicare patient (if they are a good quality hospital), they have to make all of their margin on commercial payers. Hence, welcome to a healthcare environment where a healthy individual with a $5000 deductible is paying $1,000 a month for coverage.
Liberals have to understand that uncontrolled entitlements bring everything down.
(no message)
(no message)
(no message)