The next two months will feature much discussion about Mitt Romney’s and Paul Ryan’s plan to turn Medicaid — the federal program to provide health care to the very needy, including many penniless seniors in nursing homes — into a single “block grant” to states to run their own programs. But one point is clear at the outset: This would be a bad deal for Massachusetts.
The Ryan plan, which has been endorsed by Romney, would cut federal Medicaid funding over the next decade by a third, according to the nonpartisan Urban Institute. Massachusetts would see its share drop from roughly $109 billion to $78 billion, in today’s dollars. That shift that would strain Massachusetts more than other states because seniors and disabled individuals are an outsized proportion of the Commonwealth’s Medicaid rolls — 44 percent, compared with just 35 percent nationwide. Most Medicaid spending goes toward those two demographics, a fact that Ryan doesn’t account for. He would tie the amount of state aid to overall population changes and inflation alone. The result for Massachusetts would be fewer funds for the most costly Medicaid enrollees.
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Obama plan is here and now and it's actually working! Your kids can stay on your health insurance until they're 26. You can't be denied care for a pre existing condition. Why would we go back to the foolish idea that insurance companies care about patients? They care about profits first.
And who is paying for your kid staying on your health insurance until they are 26?
And whois paying for your coverage of pre-existing conditions?
I support universal health coverage with identical coverage regardless of financial status.
This can be done by mandatory price controls and limitation of services.
A hip replacement surgery for a 96 year old with a prognosis of 30% chance dying in surgery and 100% chance of dying within a year, a situation faced by my mother-in-law, would not be covered. My mother-in-law died 22 days after the sucessful hip replacement surgery via being starved to death via hospice services.
And who is paying for your kid staying on your health insurance until they are 26?
And whois paying for your coverage of pre-existing conditions?
I support universal health coverage with identical coverage regardless of financial status.
This can be done by mandatory price controls and limitation of services.
A hip replacement surgery for a 96 year old with a prognosis of 30% chance dying in surgery and 100% chance of dying within a year, a situation faced by my mother-in-law, would not be covered. My mother-in-law died 22 days after the sucessful hip replacement surgery via being starved to death via hospice services.
Mitt Romney would do well to remember how great a role Medicaid played in his health care reform package. RomneyCare could not have been nearly as successful, if it weren't for Medicaid, particularly the generous 1115 waiver demonstration project the funds Commonwealth Care. Far greater than half of the decline in the state's uninsurance rate was due to the 1115 waiver and the Medicaid expansion. All of this would be gone under a block grant.
Not to worry. By the time this would be implemented, the new Massachusetts health care finance law will probably have wrecked all healthcare here, including Medicaid. Doctors overburdened with paperwork and bureaucratic meddling will have to cut back somewhere, and Medicaid and Medicare is the easiest place: just refuse to take these patients so you have some time to care for other patients.
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So what do a great many of these folks care? They don't. The elderly, the poor, the disabled, hey it's their own fault. That's the mentality. These issues, these problems they are not a national or a state problem, are they? The Church's with their declining membership, charities, they will fill in the gap. We will talk about good ole Romney's plan, you know end Medicare, turn it over to big business. We can talk about his other plans except he doesn't say what they are. Solutions? I don't hear solutions from Romney, from Obama, from the right or the left or the libertarians. All I hear is it's not my problem and I don't want to pay for it. The new America, a real swell bunch of people.
There's an excellent article on the Huffington Post website re enormous cost that would be borne by individuals under the Romney-Ryan Medicaire plan.Contrary to what Ryan has been saying on the campaign trail,it would also add significantly to costs for people over 55 but much,much more for young people. The article is in the Business section of the Huffington Post. With all the false information and false reassurance,offered with "charm' by Ryan,it's crucial that this info be available to voters.