Q about Medicaid expansion in HCR

[Hello_Kitty]

The bill says that everyone 133% FPL or below will qualify for Medicaid. However, the states administer the program and every state has different eligibility requirements. Many states, for example, consider your assets and not just your income. Some states even make you repay Medicaid for the services you used by putting a lien on your property. What, if anything, does the bill do to address state requirements and the variances thereof? (Please don't tell me "read the bill" because I do not comprehend government gobbledygook.)

[Hello_Kitty]

1. Kicking to see if someone knows. eom

[MineralMan]

2. I suspect that this and other questions aren't going to have

firm answers for a while. Once the bill passes, we'll finally get a look at its effects. The bill itself is going to have to be turned into actual programs.

I wish I could answer your question. I believe that the numbers on Medicaid will be imposed on the states, but I'm not certain of that.

Time will reveal more.

[kenny blankenship]

3. This is one of those areas where our wise leaders just pulled a pat answer out of their ass

We'll expand Medicaid for the indigent! Yeah, that'll shut 'em up.

You can die trying to find a place that will treat you under Medicaid. Last night someone posted a story about a major pharmacy chain (Walgreen's) that has announced a blanket policy of turning away Medicaid patients.

Comprehensiveness is either a concept that our Dems don't grasp, or else are allergic to.

[Hello_Kitty]

5. It's half of the "31 million Americans" we're forever hearing about.

15 million of them become eligible for Medicaid. And then what?

Another question I have is how mandates and subsidies and Medicaid will work with so many people being in transient short term employment situations. In any given year I could be in a job or on a contract where I make "too much" for subsidies and then my income drops to where I do qualify and then I'm unemployed and eligible for Medicaid. How do I stay in compliance with the mandate? Will I have to fill out forms and wait weeks to be accepted into a program only to have to go through the whole process again with another program because my situation changed slightly and rendered me ineligible for the first program?

[kenny blankenship]

6. And then they all stand outside the door of the 2 or 3 docs who'll take their "insurance"

Your second point is another good one I've tried to raise before at this site. Lower income people often have spotty work. They're working for a while at an OK wage then the job vanishes and who knows when the next one will come. Yet these plans require people to act like they have a steady, predictable budget (set aside this much every month and keep current on your premiums). It's completely out of touch with the reality of millions of working Americans. You have the stress of making ends meet with the lurking awareness that probably at some point during the year or next they won't meet, and then ontop of that you get to worry about finding yourself on the wrong side of the law. Through class-bound cluelessness or by sadistic design, our wise leaders are creating a system that seems almost tailor made to catch people out.

Which just makes it like everything else in America which makes life hell for the poor.

[Hello_Kitty]

7. Exactly.

And supporters of the bill have nothing to respond to this with but platitudes and guilt-trips.

[Bluerthanblue]

11. I'm supporting this bill, and I've got an answer for you that

isn't a platitude or a guilt trip.

Please look at my post below- it has a link to someone speaking about what the bill will mean to people like me-

I didn't know this until I went looking for an answer for you, and I posted it in another OP- thinking it was you :dunce: (my brain isn't working very well today)

I supported this bill before I even heard about this-(obviously)- because I believe that even this flawed bill is better than nothing- and I don't believe we will get another chance to get a bill into place if we let this one fail.

I hope this gives you some reason to feel a little less discouraged.

:hi:

[bain_sidhe]

4. My understanding is, this is a federally mandated "floor"

States can do better - and, in fact, some already do. But none can do less, which wasn't the case before.

I should note, I could be wrong. I do have trouble comprehending gov't gobbledygook too, so I'm going by what I've read in blogs and online commentary from people who I think know what they're talking about.

[slipslidingaway]

8. knr for any insight n/t

[Lilith Velkor]

9. 5th rec - I'd like to know that as well.

[Bluerthanblue]

10. I posted a reply to Sarahcat that I'd intended for you HK

I looked and looked for an answer and found this:

Have a listen, it's an interview with someone from "Famlies USA"
which states that means testing for Medicaid will be abolished under the legislation-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRhErKQBdjs&feature=player_embedded#

it's given me reason to hope.