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Report: GOP Overhaul Could Cut Medicaid Enrollment by Up to 44 Million
Almost 44 million fewer Americans would be eligible for Medicaid in 2021 if House Republicans' budget blueprint becomes law under the most dire scenario projected by the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
A new report tallies the deep cuts that states would make if the program was replaced with block grants and the number of people projected to become eligible for Medicaid under the healthcare reform law, which Republicans want to repeal. The worst scenario would leave 32.1 million people eligible for Medicaid, versus 75.9 million under current law.
The report concludes that the Republican proposal would strain state budgets while leaving millions uninsured.
"The House Budget Plan would result in federal budget savings and more predictable federal financing for Medicaid in the future," says a summary of the report. "In exchange, the plan would make fundamental changes to the financing structure of Medicaid that would substantially reduce federal payments to states, challenging states' ability to finance coverage for their low-income residents.
"This reduction could result in large reductions in payments to providers and enrollment. In turn, these reductions would likely worsen the problem of the uninsured and strain the nation's safety net. To avoid such cuts, states would need to increase their own spending."
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19 Comments so far
Show AllEasy solution for the states - just raise (again) sales, property, gas, and "sin" taxes (on cigarettes and booze). You know: those things that the middle/lower classes are already struggling to afford as their jobs vanish and their wages remain stagnant or decrease. I have two friends in my town here in Illinois that actually had to sell their houses and move into apartments because after 7 solid years of property tax increases, they could no longer afford their mortgage payments. I'm not far from that point myself. And, of course, it is a vicious cycle: the more taxes are raised on such things as property, the more people can't afford them, the more foreclosures occur, the more houses sit unsold on the market, generating no tax revenue, causing states and cities to have even larger deficits, which cause more cuts to be made to programs that benefit everyone and more tax increases to be made, etc, etc, around and around it goes.
This country is spiralling more and more rapidly downwards into 3rd world status. Hold onto your seats - gonna be a nasty ride to the bottom.
How much is enough?
I ask the super-rich.
Can a million, or a billion, or a trillion
cure your itch
to own and control
98 percent of all?
Unknowing and/or uncaring
that ours is paradise lost,
by your rapaciousness and greed,
and disregard for nature's laws.
My neighbours and myself, all of us lower middle class people are struggling to keep body and soul together. I am retired and exhausted. The younger people who live around me are not, so far anyway, joining the KKK or the John Birch Society or the Ayn Rand bandwagon. They know who is making them poor and they ain't happy about it.
I know what the top two percent are thinking: 'Maybe the middle class doesn't like being dirt poor but what can they do about it?' We own both houses of congress, the Supreme Court, and we are rapidly buying up local courts and judges.
God help us if we go the way of Germany in the thirties. The USA was hurting too but instead of a messiah with unlimited power were lucky enough to get FDR.
Anybody with a brain can see what is coming next. It's scapegoat time. The once independent radio stations the rich are buying along with everything else are pitting us against each other. The old against the young, brown, white, black all against each other and blaming each other While the Koch Brothers and their ilk watch with amusement and intense satisfaction.
I believe, over the long term, it has always been thus. After FDR we had a few decades of something approaching a decent system. Now, not so much. The democrats seem to do so little for us, but the republicans truly want to fuck us in the ass. I think that some here at CD who say they will vote republican to make things worse (killing thousands of poor without insurance) are the sickest bastards around.
If the "democrats" do nothing, and the "republicans" want to do "worse" then it seems like it is time to choose a different party, doesn't it?
Or start one.
Wait just a gosh-darn minute here, matti...are you suggesting that we :gasp: NOT vote Democrat in 2012?? OR Republican??? But..but...what other choices are there?? We can't vote 3rd party, because, well, darnit, they wouldn't have a chance of winning! And in the good old US of A, where teams and sports and competition is the national mantra (right behind money), to vote for a team that doesn't have a chance of winning is just ridiculous. No, no, much better to vote for the team that is at least slightly better - at least on the surface - than the obvious horror of the other team.
Sarcasm /off
Sorry to burst your bubble, Greg R, but the Democrats, too, have fucked everybody up the ass by their complacency and their going lockstep along with the Republicans in pretty much everything. Neither the GOP or the Democrats at large are blameless here.
The next phase of Imperial Collapse is beginning.
The Federal Government will now begin strangling the States that have become dependent on the Central Treasury and lost all independence from the Central Government.
Time to focus on what can be done at the State, County, and City levels. The Federal Government is lost until such time as a new Convention and a new Constitution can rehabilitate it.
I write this for Greens and other honest Party folks especially. Focus on the State level and "below" and 2012 and succeed better than you ever have before. Focus on the Federal level next year and fail.
-matti.
The Republicans only control the House so theoretically (if Democrats look out for the public), the proposal shouldn't have a chance to pass the Democratic Senate and Obama's veto, so why so much hoopla? Either because the Democrats would allow the bill to pass, or they are just using the issue for political purposes.
Correct, but look to 2012. If progressives don't vote, or choose to vote republican to hasten a "collapse," in the misguided idea that something good will then emerge, then watch the suffering and death. And hope for a miracle. But expect a new Hitler.
I hear you
Oooh, the big bad Republicans are cutting Medicaid.
But the awesome, wonderful Democrats passed Obamacare, the bill first proposed by the insurance industry in the 90s.
Now Medicare has been cut by $500 billion dollars, to go to the insurance companies, instead of health care providers, with $500 billion dollars more proposed next year by the Obama administration.
What does this mean, on the ground?
Hospitals are cutting staff, terrorizing their workers.
Obamacare is Leave No Child Left Behind for healthcare. Medicare will be cut off to hospitals that don't meet the standards set by the administration.
Every year, more and more hospitals will close, leaving more and more communities without access to healthcare.
In the meantime, the manufactured hostility between the Democrat corporate party and the Republican corporate party will be played by the media, including, it seems, Common Dreams.
Carry on.
This comment is basically on target.
I have been fighting for expanded medicaid on a national basis for over thirty
years. Even professionals and advocates typically responded with "ho, hum, it
won't happen..."
The reasons it is happening now are NOT that Republicans are big,bad wolves.
They are that the Democratic Party is also very much on the "take".
One of Barack Obama's main source of campaign contributions in 08 was
BIG PHARMA (The big pharmaceutical lobby.) I hope that doesn't
come as a shock to you.
Why is it surprising that Obama and his administration would oppose
healthcare as a right???
The high-powered lobbyists are smart and have very good governmental
contacts (in many fields). I am sure they love their Mothers and
wives and children too.
email:peterloeb@yahoo.com
backuninvited, what you forgot to mention is that tens of thousands more Americans will have health insurance. And, yes, Medicare costs have been cut. But, Medicare costs have to be cut. Health care costs are spiraling out of control. We must move toward medical expert "death panels." For instance, we taxpayers cannot pay for open heart surgery for 90-year-olds. Your jab "No Child Left Behind for healthcare" may have some relevance, but regulations can and will be tweaked.
One thing that SHOULD be cut is the Republican Party. I'm not that crazy about the Democratic Party, but at least they are not out and out fascists. We can't afford an organized fascist party in this country. The Republicans should be relegated to the statue of the other racist/fascist groups, such as the Nazis, the KKK, and so forth. Then the Democrats could be seen as the true conservatives they are--bowing to the corporations. Then we could form a REAL liberal party, one that represents the people's interests. I mean, if you just have to have a two party system....
Here's one more item from the Kaiser Foundation: "The House Budget Plan also would affect health centers, hospitals and safety‐net facilities that serve low-income and uninsured people and rely heavily on Medicaid revenues. By 2021, hospitals could see reductions in Medicaid funding of between 31 percent and 38 percent annually, or as much as $84.3 billion, under the plan compared with projected funding under current law. The reductions would come at a time when millions more people would lack coverage, increasing the potential demand for uncompensated hospital care."
..
These "Rich Fat Cat Bastards" are creating the next Great Depression"
Our American Society is headed for a violent Revolution....make the Russian Revolution look like a 1919 Teaparty.
The Greed of these Rich Right-WingNuts will destroy the United States from within.//
//
..
These "Rich Fat Cat Bastards" are creating the next Great Depression"
Our American Society is headed for a violent Revolution....make the Russian Revolution look like a 1919 Teaparty.
The Greed of these Rich Right-WingNuts will destroy the United States from within.//
//
Mitch Daniels, Governor of Indiana and prospective Republican Presidential candidate, just capped Medicaid for Nursing Homes at it's current rate. Since even the Middle Class uses this medicaid when they run out of their own money for the Nursing Home, this will prevent thousands of Elderly from going into a nursing home when they need it. Or those that are in a Nursing Home will be kicked out when they run out of money. Where will these Elderly go?? Who will provide care for them???
MITCH DANIELS HAS CREATED HIS OWN DEATH PANEL!!
And Mitch Daniels is a Republican that has been in the forefront of Republican innovation!! I am just curious about why the Media is not covering Mitch along with the other Governors?? Rachel Maddow listed the Governors of Michigan, Missouri and Florida as having signed bills that roll the unemployment of 26 weeks back to 20 weeks, but she neglected to mention Mitch Daniels. Why??