Mississippi’s First Serious Bid to Expand Medicaid Fails

iluvatar5150 · May 5, 2024

…because Republicans are hung up on work requirements that don’t work, and the governor thinks helping poor people is antithetical to American exceptionalism.

Mississippi’s First Serious Bid to Expand Medicaid Collapses

State lawmakers failed to reach a compromise, dashing hopes of extending largely free health care to most low-income residents and supporting struggling rural hospitals.

www.nytimes.com

Fantine · May 5, 2024

Wow, so by refusing expanded Medicaid, rural hospitals go bankrupt--and every rural citizen suffers.

dogs4thewin · May 5, 2024

Fantine said:
Wow, so by refusing expanded Medicaid, rural hospitals go bankrupt--and every rural citizen suffers.

I cannot read the article thing is behind an account wall, but can you tell me what is wrong with having work requirements for medicaid ( which if Miss is ANYTHING like GA is crap anyway sense they pay peanuts a lot of doctors will not take it it is much better if you qualify for medicare as more doctors tend to take it particularly specialists whose patients tend to be older.

Fantine · May 5, 2024

Medicaid props up the rural hospitals financially. They have lots of uninsured patients and unpaid debt. If a rural hospital closes, everyone in the community suffers. It becomes a medical desert.

My husband recently had a mild stroke. Thankfully he recovered. Although we live in a city of 100, 000 in a rural state, we have no neurologists. A neurologist worked with him via teleservice.

Would you want your loved one (with insurance) being unable to get lifesaving medical care on time?

The closure of bankrupt rural hospitals hurts everyone.

RocksInMyHead · May 5, 2024

dogs4thewin said:
I cannot read the article thing is behind an account wall,

Here, have a non-paywalled link: Mississippi’s First Serious Bid to Expand Medicaid Collapses

dogs4thewin said:
but can you tell me what is wrong with having work requirements for medicaid

1. The majority of Medicaid beneficiaries have jobs, so imposing requirements (which require paperwork and enforcement) adds unnecessary expenses to the system. It's similar to efforts to impose drug testing requirements on welfare - the money spent on testing and record-keeping far exceeds the amount saved by denying benefits to those who fail tests.

2. Adding paperwork and reporting requirements will discourage some people from applying due to the additional hassle, even if they qualify.

3. The concept of requiring people to work in order to get healthcare seems rather callous to me.

dogs4thewin said:
( which if Miss is ANYTHING like GA is crap anyway sense they pay peanuts a lot of doctors will not take it it is much better if you qualify for medicare as more doctors tend to take it particularly specialists whose patients tend to be older.

Georgia is one of the 10 states that has not signed on to the Medicaid expansion program, so it's not surprising that the experience isn't that great - they're turning down significant extra funding which could be used to increase claim payouts (among other things).

dogs4thewin · May 5, 2024

Fantine said:
Medicaid props up the rural hospitals financially. They have lots of uninsured patients and unpaid debt. If a rural hospital closes, everyone in the community suffers. It becomes a medical desert.

My husband recently had a mild stroke. Thankfully he recovered. Although we live in a city of 100, 000 in a rural state, we have no neurologists. A neurologist worked with him via teleservice.

Would you want your loved one (with insurance) being unable to get lifesaving medical care on time?

The closure of bankrupt rural hospitals hurts everyone.

Honest question how do they define a rural hospital reason I asks is in my county we have no hospitals, but the county right next to us ( well one of them anyway has two a public one and a private one.

dogs4thewin · May 5, 2024

RocksInMyHead said:
Here, have a non-paywalled link: Mississippi’s First Serious Bid to Expand Medicaid Collapses

1. The majority of Medicaid beneficiaries have jobs, so imposing requirements (which require paperwork and enforcement) adds unnecessary expenses to the system. It's similar to efforts to impose drug testing requirements on welfare - the money spent on testing and record-keeping far exceeds the amount saved by denying benefits to those who fail tests.

2. Adding paperwork and reporting requirements will discourage some people from applying due to the additional hassle, even if they qualify.

3. The concept of requiring people to work in order to get healthcare seems rather callous to me.

Georgia is one of the 10 states that has not signed on to the Medicaid expansion program, so it's not surprising that the experience isn't that great - they're turning down significant extra funding which could be used to increase claim payouts (among other things).

yeah I have dealt with private insurance ( as a minor with my dad working Medicaid, (being disabled and medicare as a result of being on my (now late) father's benefits medicaid is the worst as a LOT of places will not take it ( though some do, but put it this way when I got the note saying about checking whether I still qualified for Medicaid because of the paperwork I looked up to see just how much medicaid paid of my bills ( I knew meeicare was primary because I told mom it might be easier to let it lapse and try to reapply ( she vetoed that idea) but that was how annoying getting te paperwork done was.

RocksInMyHead · May 5, 2024

dogs4thewin said:
yeah I have dealt with private insurance ( as a minor with my dad working Medicaid, (being disabled and medicare as a result of being on my (now late) father's benefits medicaid is the worst as a LOT of places will not take it ( though some do, but put it this way when I got the note saying about checking whether I still qualified for Medicaid because of the paperwork I looked up to see just how much medicaid paid of my bills ( I knew meeicare was primary because I told mom it might be easier to let it lapse and try to reapply ( she vetoed that idea) but that was how annoying getting te paperwork done was.

Medicaid is state-funded (unless states opt into the federally-backed Medicaid expansion program, which Georgia has not), so the experience will vary from state to state. Furthermore, experiences in states (like Georgia) that have not opted into the expansion program are in no way applicable when discussing whether or not it would be worth it for a state to opt in (except, perhaps, as a further example of the downsides of not opting in).

AlexB23 · May 5, 2024

dogs4thewin said:
I cannot read the article thing is behind an account wall, but can you tell me what is wrong with having work requirements for medicaid ( which if Miss is ANYTHING like GA is crap anyway sense they pay peanuts a lot of doctors will not take it it is much better if you qualify for medicare as more doctors tend to take it particularly specialists whose patients tend to be older.

Well, I could bypass the article wall for you, but based upon my ethics learned from @essentialsaltes and my fellow Christian folks here, I can not do that, and I made a promise with God that I will never bypass a paywall again, since April 18, 2024. I agree that there should be certain work requirements for Medicaid, unless the person is disabled or severely hampered by a condition or injury.

However, this open-access article says otherwise (21 million Americans at risk if work requirements were made mandatory): https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/national-work-requirements-fact-sheet.pdf

d taylor · May 5, 2024

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Simple raise the poverty level line up $1000.00 so where working people would be eligible to purchase health care from the governments health care market place. Many if the poverty level was raised, would qualify for the lower government rate. So instead of paying $700.00+ a month for health care coverage. They would pay around $75.00+a month.

Many working poor in Mississippi are just like $75.00 to 100.00 dollars over the poverty level.

Fantine · May 6, 2024

Not actually. Medicaid is federally funded to different degrees in different states (the poorer states getting higher federal funding.)

Expanded Medicaid was initially funded 100% federally, but after a few years they dropped it to 90%. And some states were griping about paying the 10%. And so, because they were unwilling to invest 10% of the cost the rural hospitals, having far more indigent uninsured patients, went belly up, creating a health care crisis in the areas with the closed hospitals.

I have read that in a poor state like the one in which I live many more doctors take Medicaid, because if they didn't they wouldn't have enough customers to keep their doors open.

I just SMH when I hear some doctors won't take Medicare. Medicare patients, being older and sicker, use medical care far more often. They are shooting themselves in the foot if they don't want to take the patients who use their services the most.

Pommer · May 6, 2024

Fantine said:
Wow, so by refusing expanded Medicaid, rural hospitals go bankrupt--and every rural citizen suffers.

But at least there’s no “communism”.

dogs4thewin · May 6, 2024

Fantine said:
Not actually. Medicaid is federally funded to different degrees in different states (the poorer states getting higher federal funding.)

Expanded Medicaid was initially funded 100% federally, but after a few years they dropped it to 90%. And some states were griping about paying the 10%. And so, because they were unwilling to invest 10% of the cost the rural hospitals, having far more indigent uninsured patients, went belly up, creating a health care crisis in the areas with the closed hospitals.

I have read that in a poor state like the one in which I live many more doctors take Medicaid, because if they didn't they wouldn't have enough customers to keep their doors open.

I just SMH when I hear some doctors won't take Medicare. Medicare patients, being older and sicker, use medical care far more often. They are shooting themselves in the foot if they don't want to take the patients who use their services the most.

It is medicaid many will not take. Many more take Meidcare. For example, as I am on my late father's record two years after he was found disabled and would have qualified for Medicare at 55. I was able to get on his medicare benefits as an adult disabled child even though he himself passed less than three months after being found disabled. Medicare covers 80%of my bill and Medicaid covers the remaining 20%, so that is why when GA was purging the rolls after co-vid and mom and I could not figure out how to send the confirmation in I said well we could let it lapse and try to reapply ( she vetoed that idea, but after looking up that 4/5th of my bills were covered and knowing that it was MUCH more likely that a dctor would take the 80% than the 20% anyway I said well heck even if we had to payment plan the other 20% it may come out being less of a headache than trying to find somewhere that will take both and dealing with getting the darn paperwork re-submitted

Richard T · May 6, 2024

d taylor said:
-

Simple raise the poverty level line up $1000.00 so where working people would be eligible to purchase health care from the governments health care market place. Many if the poverty level was raised, would qualify for the lower government rate. So instead of paying $700.00+ a month for health care coverage. They would pay around $75.00+a month.

Many working poor in Mississippi are just like $75.00 to 100.00 dollars over the poverty level.

My understanding of expanded medicare is that the people are making too little to qualify for Obamacare. Otherwise they could get tax credits and get health insurance through the exchange. So this leaves many of the poor uninsured. usually there is some allowance for kids or single parents but many fall through the cracks.

d taylor · May 6, 2024

Richard T said:
My understanding of expanded medicare is that the people are making too little to qualify for Obamacare. Otherwise they could get tax credits and get health insurance through the exchange. So this leaves many of the poor uninsured. usually there is some allowance for kids or single parents but many fall through the cracks.

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Yes, but they do not qualify. Because the money they make from work pushes them over the poverty level line. Some do not qualify because they are over the poverty level line by just $50.00

Mississippi’s First Serious Bid to Expand Medicaid Fails

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