What Medicaid population will lose benefits under this new bill?

[Anonymous]

I think it comes down to 2 questions. And whether you are coming at these questions based on principle or pragmatism.

Is health care a right that we get for paying taxes?

That is what countries with nationalized healthcare believe - uk, Taiwan, s Korea, Japan, Sweden, etc.

If you don’t believe it’s a right, then to what extent should we provide Medicaid and Medicare to benefit us as a whole? We have Medicaid and Medicare because it might be cheaper to provide healthcare for 80 million people rather than have to pay for the fallout of not providing it. If we don’t provide healthcare, we have fewer people who can work, more homeless, more chronic illness, shorter lifespans, more maternal and infant mortality, more medical debt, fewer home purchases, fewer car purchases, fewer services hired, more uncertainty, and less income. It would decrease our gdp significantly.

Is the system deeply flawed? Yes. As an md who worked a majority of the time in county hospitals, it’s totally f’d up. We would fantasize about working at Kaiser or someplace where we didn’t have to deal with all the Medicaid bs. But the horse is out of the barn. Aside from the philosophical question of “why are we paying for so many people’s healthcare”, rescinding healthcare to millions of Americans is going to do a lot of harm. Some of them are grifters. Some of them have expensive medical needs that, to be brutally honest, are probably not worth it. But there are enough people who need this coverage to continue contributing to society economically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Elderly people who are in nursing homes, can't work, and have no money left and sometimes no family, are just going to be out on the street.

Can you please substantiate your claim that elderly (I am assuming Medicare age people) who are so disabled they are in nursing homes will be targeted? Are they even using Medicaid to cover nursing homes or some other form of benefit for post-retirement age people with no assets, low fixed income?

If you are old AND poor, Medicaid covers your premiums and anything Medicare doesn’t cover, like copays and Rx and stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We’ve had a 30% increase in Medicaid enrollment since 2020!!! That is unsustainable, our entitlement programs are crushing us with debt. How else do we solve without cuts to entitlement programs. Taxing the rich won’t solve the problem, doesn’t bend the curve enough. What do you suggest we do to solve the problem?

What happened to the world in 2020? Every country had to work its way back from the pandemic effects, and we were doing better than all of them. But not fast enough for adolescent MAGA. So they are going to trash it all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it comes down to 2 questions. And whether you are coming at these questions based on principle or pragmatism.

Is health care a right that we get for paying taxes?

That is what countries with nationalized healthcare believe - uk, Taiwan, s Korea, Japan, Sweden, etc.

If you don’t believe it’s a right, then to what extent should we provide Medicaid and Medicare to benefit us as a whole? We have Medicaid and Medicare because it might be cheaper to provide healthcare for 80 million people rather than have to pay for the fallout of not providing it. If we don’t provide healthcare, we have fewer people who can work, more homeless, more chronic illness, shorter lifespans, more maternal and infant mortality, more medical debt, fewer home purchases, fewer car purchases, fewer services hired, more uncertainty, and less income. It would decrease our gdp significantly.

Is the system deeply flawed? Yes. As an md who worked a majority of the time in county hospitals, it’s totally f’d up. We would fantasize about working at Kaiser or someplace where we didn’t have to deal with all the Medicaid bs. But the horse is out of the barn. Aside from the philosophical question of “why are we paying for so many people’s healthcare”, rescinding healthcare to millions of Americans is going to do a lot of harm. Some of them are grifters. Some of them have expensive medical needs that, to be brutally honest, are probably not worth it. But there are enough people who need this coverage to continue contributing to society economically.

This doesn’t answer the question of how you pay for it. We can not afford to continue along the path we are on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it comes down to 2 questions. And whether you are coming at these questions based on principle or pragmatism.

Is health care a right that we get for paying taxes?

That is what countries with nationalized healthcare believe - uk, Taiwan, s Korea, Japan, Sweden, etc.

If you don’t believe it’s a right, then to what extent should we provide Medicaid and Medicare to benefit us as a whole? We have Medicaid and Medicare because it might be cheaper to provide healthcare for 80 million people rather than have to pay for the fallout of not providing it. If we don’t provide healthcare, we have fewer people who can work, more homeless, more chronic illness, shorter lifespans, more maternal and infant mortality, more medical debt, fewer home purchases, fewer car purchases, fewer services hired, more uncertainty, and less income. It would decrease our gdp significantly.

Is the system deeply flawed? Yes. As an md who worked a majority of the time in county hospitals, it’s totally f’d up. We would fantasize about working at Kaiser or someplace where we didn’t have to deal with all the Medicaid bs. But the horse is out of the barn. Aside from the philosophical question of “why are we paying for so many people’s healthcare”, rescinding healthcare to millions of Americans is going to do a lot of harm. Some of them are grifters. Some of them have expensive medical needs that, to be brutally honest, are probably not worth it. But there are enough people who need this coverage to continue contributing to society economically.

This doesn’t answer the question of how you pay for it. We can not afford to continue along the path we are on.

It’s going to get a whole lot more expensive for us because people will still get sick, but now they will delay getting care until it’s catastrophic, and we (insurance-holders) will shoulder the burden as costs get passed down to us when the non-insured show up at the ER with a preventable disease or something that should have been caught sooner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it comes down to 2 questions. And whether you are coming at these questions based on principle or pragmatism.

Is health care a right that we get for paying taxes?

That is what countries with nationalized healthcare believe - uk, Taiwan, s Korea, Japan, Sweden, etc.

If you don’t believe it’s a right, then to what extent should we provide Medicaid and Medicare to benefit us as a whole? We have Medicaid and Medicare because it might be cheaper to provide healthcare for 80 million people rather than have to pay for the fallout of not providing it. If we don’t provide healthcare, we have fewer people who can work, more homeless, more chronic illness, shorter lifespans, more maternal and infant mortality, more medical debt, fewer home purchases, fewer car purchases, fewer services hired, more uncertainty, and less income. It would decrease our gdp significantly.

Is the system deeply flawed? Yes. As an md who worked a majority of the time in county hospitals, it’s totally f’d up. We would fantasize about working at Kaiser or someplace where we didn’t have to deal with all the Medicaid bs. But the horse is out of the barn. Aside from the philosophical question of “why are we paying for so many people’s healthcare”, rescinding healthcare to millions of Americans is going to do a lot of harm. Some of them are grifters. Some of them have expensive medical needs that, to be brutally honest, are probably not worth it. But there are enough people who need this coverage to continue contributing to society economically.

This doesn’t answer the question of how you pay for it. We can not afford to continue along the path we are on.

It’s going to get a whole lot more expensive for us because people will still get sick, but now they will delay getting care until it’s catastrophic, and we (insurance-holders) will shoulder the burden as costs get passed down to us when the non-insured show up at the ER with a preventable disease or something that should have been caught sooner.

Maybe. Or maybe some of these folks will get jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it comes down to 2 questions. And whether you are coming at these questions based on principle or pragmatism.

Is health care a right that we get for paying taxes?

That is what countries with nationalized healthcare believe - uk, Taiwan, s Korea, Japan, Sweden, etc.

If you don’t believe it’s a right, then to what extent should we provide Medicaid and Medicare to benefit us as a whole? We have Medicaid and Medicare because it might be cheaper to provide healthcare for 80 million people rather than have to pay for the fallout of not providing it. If we don’t provide healthcare, we have fewer people who can work, more homeless, more chronic illness, shorter lifespans, more maternal and infant mortality, more medical debt, fewer home purchases, fewer car purchases, fewer services hired, more uncertainty, and less income. It would decrease our gdp significantly.

Is the system deeply flawed? Yes. As an md who worked a majority of the time in county hospitals, it’s totally f’d up. We would fantasize about working at Kaiser or someplace where we didn’t have to deal with all the Medicaid bs. But the horse is out of the barn. Aside from the philosophical question of “why are we paying for so many people’s healthcare”, rescinding healthcare to millions of Americans is going to do a lot of harm. Some of them are grifters. Some of them have expensive medical needs that, to be brutally honest, are probably not worth it. But there are enough people who need this coverage to continue contributing to society economically.

This doesn’t answer the question of how you pay for it. We can not afford to continue along the path we are on.

It’s going to get a whole lot more expensive for us because people will still get sick, but now they will delay getting care until it’s catastrophic, and we (insurance-holders) will shoulder the burden as costs get passed down to us when the non-insured show up at the ER with a preventable disease or something that should have been caught sooner.

Maybe. Or maybe some of these folks will get jobs.

What jobs? Ones that provide healthcare? Unlikely.

If you think you are going to have a satisfying life when the streets are teeming with the elderly, sick, disabled poor people you are certifiable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great article demonstrating that Medicaid “work requirements” are actually just bureaucratic red tape designed to trip people up so they can be kicked out of the program:

https://www.propublica.or...nial-video

Not just that. There are things like requiring recertification every 6 months minimum instead of annually. People are still supposed to report changes in income, etc but the full review of income, assets, household members, utilities, etc, etc typically happens once a year. Currently if you apply for medicaid they will go back 3 months for coverage (you still have to provide income etc), that will change to one month. People on Medicaid expansion or Chip who have premium payments and miss payments currently can restore coverage for up to a 3 month gap, that will go to one month as well.
Besides the recertification, there are a bunch of extra things they are going to make states do to confirm provider and recipient eligibility. This is already done but they want to double down on it. The state administrative burden between those things and work documentation will increase states' administrative costs.

By the way: 70% of medicaid recipients are on some kind of managed care plan. You can be sure the insurance companies have plenty of ways to make bank (like the medicare advantage companies that add phony chronic diseases to people to get a higher capitation payment and then deny rehab care after some old person is discharged from the hospital after a stroke).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it comes down to 2 questions. And whether you are coming at these questions based on principle or pragmatism.

Is health care a right that we get for paying taxes?

That is what countries with nationalized healthcare believe - uk, Taiwan, s Korea, Japan, Sweden, etc.

If you don’t believe it’s a right, then to what extent should we provide Medicaid and Medicare to benefit us as a whole? We have Medicaid and Medicare because it might be cheaper to provide healthcare for 80 million people rather than have to pay for the fallout of not providing it. If we don’t provide healthcare, we have fewer people who can work, more homeless, more chronic illness, shorter lifespans, more maternal and infant mortality, more medical debt, fewer home purchases, fewer car purchases, fewer services hired, more uncertainty, and less income. It would decrease our gdp significantly.

Is the system deeply flawed? Yes. As an md who worked a majority of the time in county hospitals, it’s totally f’d up. We would fantasize about working at Kaiser or someplace where we didn’t have to deal with all the Medicaid bs. But the horse is out of the barn. Aside from the philosophical question of “why are we paying for so many people’s healthcare”, rescinding healthcare to millions of Americans is going to do a lot of harm. Some of them are grifters. Some of them have expensive medical needs that, to be brutally honest, are probably not worth it. But there are enough people who need this coverage to continue contributing to society economically.

This doesn’t answer the question of how you pay for it. We can not afford to continue along the path we are on.

It’s going to get a whole lot more expensive for us because people will still get sick, but now they will delay getting care until it’s catastrophic, and we (insurance-holders) will shoulder the burden as costs get passed down to us when the non-insured show up at the ER with a preventable disease or something that should have been caught sooner.

Maybe. Or maybe some of these folks will get jobs.

64% already work.
7% are in school.
10% (it might be more, I don't have the pie chart handy) are caregivers--like a mom I know whose daughter was born with profound physical and developmental disabilities and is home schooled because whenever she's been in public programs she develops severe respiratory illnesses besides getting crap therapies.
I remember it came out to 10% who are not working for "other reasons" including inability to find work, being retired, or due to chronic illness or other conditions--remember, you can bne significantly impaired without meeting criteria to be disabled under SSA rules. Older people who don't have higher level job skills don't get to have desk jobs and may not be able to physically tolerate 8 hours on the chicken boning conveyor or loading boxes at Amazon.

And it's not like healthcare is fungible. You can't sell it for cash in the corner of the Walmart parking lot.

When Arkansas tried it, the work reporting turned out to be a huge mess, a lot of people lost healthcare, and the employment rate did not go up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it comes down to 2 questions. And whether you are coming at these questions based on principle or pragmatism.

Is health care a right that we get for paying taxes?

That is what countries with nationalized healthcare believe - uk, Taiwan, s Korea, Japan, Sweden, etc.

If you don’t believe it’s a right, then to what extent should we provide Medicaid and Medicare to benefit us as a whole? We have Medicaid and Medicare because it might be cheaper to provide healthcare for 80 million people rather than have to pay for the fallout of not providing it. If we don’t provide healthcare, we have fewer people who can work, more homeless, more chronic illness, shorter lifespans, more maternal and infant mortality, more medical debt, fewer home purchases, fewer car purchases, fewer services hired, more uncertainty, and less income. It would decrease our gdp significantly.

Is the system deeply flawed? Yes. As an md who worked a majority of the time in county hospitals, it’s totally f’d up. We would fantasize about working at Kaiser or someplace where we didn’t have to deal with all the Medicaid bs. But the horse is out of the barn. Aside from the philosophical question of “why are we paying for so many people’s healthcare”, rescinding healthcare to millions of Americans is going to do a lot of harm. Some of them are grifters. Some of them have expensive medical needs that, to be brutally honest, are probably not worth it. But there are enough people who need this coverage to continue contributing to society economically.

This doesn’t answer the question of how you pay for it. We can not afford to continue along the path we are on.

It’s going to get a whole lot more expensive for us because people will still get sick, but now they will delay getting care until it’s catastrophic, and we (insurance-holders) will shoulder the burden as costs get passed down to us when the non-insured show up at the ER with a preventable disease or something that should have been caught sooner.

Maybe. Or maybe some of these folks will get jobs.

64% already work.
7% are in school.
10% (it might be more, I don't have the pie chart handy) are caregivers--like a mom I know whose daughter was born with profound physical and developmental disabilities and is home schooled because whenever she's been in public programs she develops severe respiratory illnesses besides getting crap therapies.
I remember it came out to 10% who are not working for "other reasons" including inability to find work, being retired, or due to chronic illness or other conditions--remember, you can bne significantly impaired without meeting criteria to be disabled under SSA rules. Older people who don't have higher level job skills don't get to have desk jobs and may not be able to physically tolerate 8 hours on the chicken boning conveyor or loading boxes at Amazon.

And it's not like healthcare is fungible. You can't sell it for cash in the corner of the Walmart parking lot.

When Arkansas tried it, the work reporting turned out to be a huge mess, a lot of people lost healthcare, and the employment rate did not go up.

It's been a disaster in every state that has tried it. It costs more money to run than it saves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it comes down to 2 questions. And whether you are coming at these questions based on principle or pragmatism.

Is health care a right that we get for paying taxes?

That is what countries with nationalized healthcare believe - uk, Taiwan, s Korea, Japan, Sweden, etc.

If you don’t believe it’s a right, then to what extent should we provide Medicaid and Medicare to benefit us as a whole? We have Medicaid and Medicare because it might be cheaper to provide healthcare for 80 million people rather than have to pay for the fallout of not providing it. If we don’t provide healthcare, we have fewer people who can work, more homeless, more chronic illness, shorter lifespans, more maternal and infant mortality, more medical debt, fewer home purchases, fewer car purchases, fewer services hired, more uncertainty, and less income. It would decrease our gdp significantly.

Is the system deeply flawed? Yes. As an md who worked a majority of the time in county hospitals, it’s totally f’d up. We would fantasize about working at Kaiser or someplace where we didn’t have to deal with all the Medicaid bs. But the horse is out of the barn. Aside from the philosophical question of “why are we paying for so many people’s healthcare”, rescinding healthcare to millions of Americans is going to do a lot of harm. Some of them are grifters. Some of them have expensive medical needs that, to be brutally honest, are probably not worth it. But there are enough people who need this coverage to continue contributing to society economically.

This doesn’t answer the question of how you pay for it. We can not afford to continue along the path we are on.

So the answer is just do whatever no matter how stupid it is and the ultimate cost?
This is like deciding you can't afford your health insurance premiums so screw it, you'll cancel your coverage and put the money into caribbean cruises. Because that is what cutting medicaid to pay for tax cuts is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it comes down to 2 questions. And whether you are coming at these questions based on principle or pragmatism.

Is health care a right that we get for paying taxes?

That is what countries with nationalized healthcare believe - uk, Taiwan, s Korea, Japan, Sweden, etc.

If you don’t believe it’s a right, then to what extent should we provide Medicaid and Medicare to benefit us as a whole? We have Medicaid and Medicare because it might be cheaper to provide healthcare for 80 million people rather than have to pay for the fallout of not providing it. If we don’t provide healthcare, we have fewer people who can work, more homeless, more chronic illness, shorter lifespans, more maternal and infant mortality, more medical debt, fewer home purchases, fewer car purchases, fewer services hired, more uncertainty, and less income. It would decrease our gdp significantly.

Is the system deeply flawed? Yes. As an md who worked a majority of the time in county hospitals, it’s totally f’d up. We would fantasize about working at Kaiser or someplace where we didn’t have to deal with all the Medicaid bs. But the horse is out of the barn. Aside from the philosophical question of “why are we paying for so many people’s healthcare”, rescinding healthcare to millions of Americans is going to do a lot of harm. Some of them are grifters. Some of them have expensive medical needs that, to be brutally honest, are probably not worth it. But there are enough people who need this coverage to continue contributing to society economically.

Not quite.

Medicaid is 32% funded by states and 68% funded by the federal government. 872 Billion total.

That means $872B is sequestered from the general economy and directed towards health care by fiat decisions of bureaucrats.

It also means $872B is not money not spent elsewhere. A conscious government decision is made to throw those funds at Medicaid.

Doesn't matter how successful or unsuccessful the program is. It's on autopilot and answers to no one on effectiveness. Don't underestimate the unintended consequences of that. Now, combine that with Medicare, HHS spending, CHIPS, and all the other entitlements and you start to see the problem.

A large part of our spending is on autopilot, it's spoken for, and answers to no one on effectiveness. It's a rigged program for providers and participants and it's a large part of our economy with very few market forces instilled in it. The providers are working in unison against the tax payer to maximize their payout. It's a big part of the "command economy" run from the ivory towers of Washington. And, it starves the rest of the economy who cannot compete for those allocated tax payer dollars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it comes down to 2 questions. And whether you are coming at these questions based on principle or pragmatism.

Is health care a right that we get for paying taxes?

That is what countries with nationalized healthcare believe - uk, Taiwan, s Korea, Japan, Sweden, etc.

If you don’t believe it’s a right, then to what extent should we provide Medicaid and Medicare to benefit us as a whole? We have Medicaid and Medicare because it might be cheaper to provide healthcare for 80 million people rather than have to pay for the fallout of not providing it. If we don’t provide healthcare, we have fewer people who can work, more homeless, more chronic illness, shorter lifespans, more maternal and infant mortality, more medical debt, fewer home purchases, fewer car purchases, fewer services hired, more uncertainty, and less income. It would decrease our gdp significantly.

Is the system deeply flawed? Yes. As an md who worked a majority of the time in county hospitals, it’s totally f’d up. We would fantasize about working at Kaiser or someplace where we didn’t have to deal with all the Medicaid bs. But the horse is out of the barn. Aside from the philosophical question of “why are we paying for so many people’s healthcare”, rescinding healthcare to millions of Americans is going to do a lot of harm. Some of them are grifters. Some of them have expensive medical needs that, to be brutally honest, are probably not worth it. But there are enough people who need this coverage to continue contributing to society economically.

This doesn’t answer the question of how you pay for it. We can not afford to continue along the path we are on.

We spend more on healthcare with worse outcomes than all developed countries. This is commonly attributed to our lack of a single payor system which has leverage of negation of costs. While the hope was that the ACA would be a middle ground between free market and socialism costs have not decreased since its inception. It’s true we cannot afford to keep up our spending levels at our current funding levels but we should be compassionate human beings and look to spread the burden evenly. The 1% can pay more. The military can spend less. We can reevalue our healthcare system again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it comes down to 2 questions. And whether you are coming at these questions based on principle or pragmatism.

Is health care a right that we get for paying taxes?

That is what countries with nationalized healthcare believe - uk, Taiwan, s Korea, Japan, Sweden, etc.

If you don’t believe it’s a right, then to what extent should we provide Medicaid and Medicare to benefit us as a whole? We have Medicaid and Medicare because it might be cheaper to provide healthcare for 80 million people rather than have to pay for the fallout of not providing it. If we don’t provide healthcare, we have fewer people who can work, more homeless, more chronic illness, shorter lifespans, more maternal and infant mortality, more medical debt, fewer home purchases, fewer car purchases, fewer services hired, more uncertainty, and less income. It would decrease our gdp significantly.

Is the system deeply flawed? Yes. As an md who worked a majority of the time in county hospitals, it’s totally f’d up. We would fantasize about working at Kaiser or someplace where we didn’t have to deal with all the Medicaid bs. But the horse is out of the barn. Aside from the philosophical question of “why are we paying for so many people’s healthcare”, rescinding healthcare to millions of Americans is going to do a lot of harm. Some of them are grifters. Some of them have expensive medical needs that, to be brutally honest, are probably not worth it. But there are enough people who need this coverage to continue contributing to society economically.

This doesn’t answer the question of how you pay for it. We can not afford to continue along the path we are on.

It’s going to get a whole lot more expensive for us because people will still get sick, but now they will delay getting care until it’s catastrophic, and we (insurance-holders) will shoulder the burden as costs get passed down to us when the non-insured show up at the ER with a preventable disease or something that should have been caught sooner.

Maybe. Or maybe some of these folks will get jobs.

Most people on Medicaid already have jobs. Get out of your Fox News bubble.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it comes down to 2 questions. And whether you are coming at these questions based on principle or pragmatism.

Is health care a right that we get for paying taxes?

That is what countries with nationalized healthcare believe - uk, Taiwan, s Korea, Japan, Sweden, etc.

If you don’t believe it’s a right, then to what extent should we provide Medicaid and Medicare to benefit us as a whole? We have Medicaid and Medicare because it might be cheaper to provide healthcare for 80 million people rather than have to pay for the fallout of not providing it. If we don’t provide healthcare, we have fewer people who can work, more homeless, more chronic illness, shorter lifespans, more maternal and infant mortality, more medical debt, fewer home purchases, fewer car purchases, fewer services hired, more uncertainty, and less income. It would decrease our gdp significantly.

Is the system deeply flawed? Yes. As an md who worked a majority of the time in county hospitals, it’s totally f’d up. We would fantasize about working at Kaiser or someplace where we didn’t have to deal with all the Medicaid bs. But the horse is out of the barn. Aside from the philosophical question of “why are we paying for so many people’s healthcare”, rescinding healthcare to millions of Americans is going to do a lot of harm. Some of them are grifters. Some of them have expensive medical needs that, to be brutally honest, are probably not worth it. But there are enough people who need this coverage to continue contributing to society economically.

This doesn’t answer the question of how you pay for it. We can not afford to continue along the path we are on.

It’s going to get a whole lot more expensive for us because people will still get sick, but now they will delay getting care until it’s catastrophic, and we (insurance-holders) will shoulder the burden as costs get passed down to us when the non-insured show up at the ER with a preventable disease or something that should have been caught sooner.

Maybe. Or maybe some of these folks will get jobs.

64% already work.
7% are in school.
10% (it might be more, I don't have the pie chart handy) are caregivers--like a mom I know whose daughter was born with profound physical and developmental disabilities and is home schooled because whenever she's been in public programs she develops severe respiratory illnesses besides getting crap therapies.
I remember it came out to 10% who are not working for "other reasons" including inability to find work, being retired, or due to chronic illness or other conditions--remember, you can bne significantly impaired without meeting criteria to be disabled under SSA rules. Older people who don't have higher level job skills don't get to have desk jobs and may not be able to physically tolerate 8 hours on the chicken boning conveyor or loading boxes at Amazon.

And it's not like healthcare is fungible. You can't sell it for cash in the corner of the Walmart parking lot.

When Arkansas tried it, the work reporting turned out to be a huge mess, a lot of people lost healthcare, and the employment rate did not go up.

But healthcare is not an entitlement in this country. If it were, everyone would have the same. Most of these people paying nothing for their healthcare have better coverage than those of us paying through the nose. ACA was supposed to help, but all it’s done is cost more and more and offer less and less.