What??? |
My dad’s bed is paid for by Medicaid. I will not write a check. I will not pick him up. I urge you all to refuse to do the same for your loved ones. The problem will get straightened out really fast —especially at the mostly for profit places. |
I’m not a boomer. I voted for HRC, Biden, and Harris. Getting rid of Medicaid screws me over because I couldn’t afford LTC ins during the past 20+ years as a public school teacher and now I have too complicated a medical history to qualify. There are many thousands of public servants like me. |
There may be a lot of changes but they will include:
1. Nothing changes for people 50 and over on the date enacted. 2. Ages go up to 66/68/70 for all between 25 and 50. 3. Outside income will decrease benefits to 80. Cap on total benefits based on NW. 4. Payments go up. 5. Increase in ages for people now 25 or under to 70/72/75. |
The Republicans need to find money to pay for extending the 2017 tax cuts.
They won’t do anything to Social Security, at least until after the midterm elections in 2026, because they have a razor thin majority in the House. Cutting Social Security, a very popular program, would be political suicide. Medicare is in a similar category, though they may do things like pass site neutral payments, eliminating hospitals’ ability to charge more for certain services depending on where they are performed. Republicans also will continue to push Medicare Advantage, but that’s a philosophical thing and won’t save any money. Medicaid is the big target. In particular the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. The feds pay 90 percent of the costs of the expansion population, which mostly is non-disabled single adults and parents. States pay only 10 percent. That’s a far more generous match than that provided for traditional Medicaid populations (kids, pregnant women, the elderly in nursing homes), and was set ip that way to entice states to adopt Medicaid expansion. The Republicans will lower that match rate so that it is the same as that for traditional Medicaid populations (that match rate varies by state, but generally speaking poorer states get a higher share of federal matching dollars). Lowering the match rate for the expansion population will impose huge, untenable costs on states, and most of them will drop their Medicaid expansion, leaving those individuals without health coverage. One casualty will be rural hospitals, some of which have become dependent on Medicaid expansion money to stay afloat. State Medicaid programs will return to their focus on covering kids and the poor elderly in nursing homes. Republicans also will pass work requirements for people on Medicaid as a condition of eligibility. Nevermind the fact that most non-elderly, non-disabled adults on Medicaid already work (in jobs that don’t provide health insurance), this change will make Republicans feel good because at bottom they don’t think these people are deserving of government help. (They are not, you know, white farmers or big corporations.) Medicaid work requirements save money by kicking people off Medicaid, though many — perhaps most — who get kicked off will technically have met the work requirement, they just won’t be able to navigate the bureaucracy and red tape associated with reporting their compliance. Finally, and most importantly, Republicans will try to pass block grants or “per capita caps” on Medicaid funding. So, instead of automatically reimbursing states for a share of the cost of Medicaid health services for enrollees as an entitlement (no upward cost cap), the federal government will send states a limited “block grant” every year, or perhaps a capped annual payment per Medicaid enrollee each year, to limit the federal government’s financial exposure. They get federal budget certainty, and the states get left holding the bag. There is big federal savings to be had in this, probably reducing expected federal Medicaid spending by nearly one third. But this also is when grandma starts having to move out of the nursing home and into your basement. Less nursing home care would be paid for by Medicaid and more would be paid privately. A cap on federal Medicaid spending also would be devastating for some hospitals, who would end up providing more uncompensated care. In one final twist of cruelty, Republicans will claim they are doing this to “preserve Medicaid for the future”, arguing that the program’s current cost trends are unsustainable. Nevermind that Medicaid has lower administrative costs than private insurance and pays medical providers less than Medicare does. This will be the big ine to watch: Can the Republicans get this through the House with such a narrow majority or will some moderate-ish Republican from some state like New York or California decide that they don’t want to be responsible for defunding hospitals and kicking elderly people out of nursing homes in their districts. All in order to take money from poor people ti finance tax cuts for rich people. Buckle up, indeed. |
Well, I hope my mom’s savings can last her until this administration is voted out! Then, fingers crossed, medicaid will be funded again, in case we need to place her in a nursing home. |
Here’s the thing… once they defund these programs it is gonna be hella difficult to get that money back. It will already be in the pockets of the wealthy, and Dems will be forced to raise taxes. |
You will die too like the rest of us. |
Damn I am 48. When you regret you aren’t a bit older lol |
Honestly Medicaid for illegal immigrants like in CA should never have happened. They also cover in home support services regardless of immigration status. This is a huge money pit and attracts even more illegal immigrants to the state. Might be good for companies but bad for regular taxpayers. |
I think the nursing home (?) your dad is at will send him to the hospital with a UTI or maybe a sacral pressure ulcer which develops as the care gets worse and worse. The hospital will stabilize him, then send him to your home if there is not a Medicaid paid bed somewhere. That’s what I think could happen. |
49 year old thinking the very same thing. |
No one actually knows. Elon is now talking about essentially shutting down all agencies “to see what we really need.” All we can really count on is chaos. |
But that is paid for with state dollars only, not federal money. If there is a debate to be had over it, it should be a debate within California over how state tax money is used. It doesn’t have anything to do with the federal government. |
Zero chance. And social security won’t be taxed. |