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Obviously, the type of people you are familiar with and the type of people on Medicaid that I've dealt with are completely different.
One young woman I actually know has had 4 children. The father lives with them but they aren't married. He has a good job with health care but they choose not to put the kids on it because why pay a higher premium when you can get it for free. Despite what the dentist at the free clinic advised - she continued to give the children all the pop and juice they wanted - resulting in rotten teeth - all the kids have had extensive work done for free - because she choses not to be responsible.
She has been trained twice for different occupations at our expense - but doesn't like working and so sits home continuing to add to her already hefty frame due to fast food and snacks. The 4 yr old weighs 85 lbs. They receive food stamps, Medicaid, free housing and utilities. They also have cable, a computer, the kids are in private school, take dance lessons and vacation.
Woah now. Like most anecdotes like this, your story doesn't add up. To qualify for food stamps for a family of 5, their gross income would have to be under $2,927 a month. Don't tell me that the father's income doesn't count because you just said that the father lives with them. If the father of the children live in the same household, they have to use his income. They DO NOT get free housing and utilities. All subsidized housing charges market rate or 30% of a family's income, whichever is less. And you claim their children are in private school? How would a family afford that for several kids on an income of $35K or less (which they would have to have to qualify for food stamps which you say they do). Even if they are getting discounted housing, free food, and free medical for their kids, it still doesn't add up. The cheapest private school here costs $6K for one kid. And that is extremely cheap for a private school. And they are still paying health care costs for both adults because the mother would not qualify for medicaid with a household income of $35K in any state.
Last edited by soanchorless; 05-04-2013 at 03:40 PM..
No here is what I was trying to say and couldn't. Competence of care everyone should be entitled too. However, if you aren't paying for something, done't expect all the frills and perks someone who does pay. Its like saying I am paying for an economy plane ticket, but I want to be treated as a first class customer. And, moreover, I want the rest of the people on the airplane to pay for the difference. After all, its my right.
The thing I don't think people understand is that providing care to get someone healthy SAVES money in the long run. I work as a therapist in nursing homes, and as an example, Medicaid patients are allowed to get very minimal therapy only, like 15 minutes twice a week. While that sounds on the surface like it saves money, the reality is that if people can't get the help they need to recover, they end up staying long term in the nursing home. So rather than pay a few hundred a week for decent therapy, they end up paying a couple of thousand a week for long term nursing home care. Same thing goes for community programs like meals on wheels and other things that conservatives always want to cut - every community support that gets cut makes it that much more likely the person will go into a nursing home, costing much more than the meals and home assistance cost.
In nursing homes I've worked in that are in wealthier areas, the average age is somewhere around 90. In poor areas, it's 60-something, due to the differences in health care and support available. That means the state is paying for long term care for decades, when in many cases they could have kept them at home and saved money had they proper health care and community supports. If a state kept just 10 people from going into a nursing home on Medicaid, that state would save hundreds of thousands each year. Imagine of they kept 1000 more home!
The problem seems to be that many people appear to feel that the poor deserve/need to be punished for being poor. It is a very short-sighted view, IMO.
People are treated differently depending on the insurance, whether it be medicaid or BCBS PPO. I can rabble on about this but I'll say one thing. If you are middle class in your 40s and have a HMO, get rid of it including Kaiser. A single doctor who has a HMO patient and a BCBS PPO patient, both with the same condition, he will treat, advice and prescribe differently. If the condition is serious this behavior can be dangerous to the patient. Why is this? It's all in their contract with each insurance company they do business with, chock full of incentives and disincentives. Is it right? No, it's rude and underhanded, immoral, unethical and cuts against the hippocratic oath.
This is not correct. You can't make blanket statements like this. I make it a point not to read the face sheets for the type of insurance each patient has, so I dont even know which patient has what. Every patient is treated the same. True, I lose money on medicaid and charity care patients. I break even on medicare patients. And I make my money on insurance and self-pay patients. But when I m treating them, I dont know which is which. It all goes into a pool, and I let my billing company sort it out.
Your Mom hung with the Dems a long time if she waited for NAFTA.
Her last vote for anyone was 1976 for Jimmy Carter, before re-registering and voting for Hillary in the 2008 primaries. She liked Bill Clinton, but apparently not enough to bother voting for him. She's not very political; probably because she's felt ignored by both parties for so long. I can't say I share her apathy, but understand it to an extent...back in the day when party machines were humming someone would have wanted her vote enough to bother coming to her and making sure she cast it.
I just thought of a caveat to my statement above. We recently had a patient in Labor and delivery who was clinic patient (no insurance). The way it works is a pregnant woman goes to the clinic and she gets treated by the Ob/GYN on call. This particular patient had a very "macho" and uneducated boyfriend, who did not want a male Ob/Gyn delivering the baby. The on call Ob/Gyn was a male, and there were no female docs in the hospital at the time. The boyfriend got irate, and the nurse told him "You know, when you pay for a doctor, you can pick whoever you want. Male, female, black, white, or whatever. But when you are getting care for free, you have to take whatever is available." They ended up leaving and going to another hospital.
In this case, I think the nurse was right. But that is because it was not an issue of quality. Poor people should have equal quality care as rich people, but that doesn't mean they can always get exactly what they want.
I just thought of a caveat to my statement above. We recently had a patient in Labor and delivery who was clinic patient (no insurance). The way it works is a pregnant woman goes to the clinic and she gets treated by the Ob/GYN on call. This particular patient had a very "macho" and uneducated boyfriend, who did not want a male Ob/Gyn delivering the baby. The on call Ob/Gyn was a male, and there were no female docs in the hospital at the time. The boyfriend got irate, and the nurse told him "You know, when you pay for a doctor, you can pick whoever you want. Male, female, black, white, or whatever. But when you are getting care for free, you have to take whatever is available." They ended up leaving and going to another hospital.
In this case, I think the nurse was right. But that is because it was not an issue of quality. Poor people should have equal quality care as rich people, but that doesn't mean they can always get exactly what they want.
This is another classic example of why the pushback from the right. Here is a person getting FREE healthcare, yet they are going to try and dictate exactly what comes from it. Like walking into a restaurant which is going to give you free food and sending back your steak, because you don't like the way it was cooked.
The unfortunate truth of the matter is there are MANY ungrateful persons in this country, which feel owed and entitled to everything given to them. As such, they demand something they are not deserved of.
Obviously, the type of people you are familiar with and the type of people on Medicaid that I've dealt with are completely different.
One young woman I actually know has had 4 children. The father lives with them but they aren't married. He has a good job with health care but they choose not to put the kids on it because why pay a higher premium when you can get it for free. Despite what the dentist at the free clinic advised - she continued to give the children all the pop and juice they wanted - resulting in rotten teeth - all the kids have had extensive work done for free - because she choses not to be responsible.
She has been trained twice for different occupations at our expense - but doesn't like working and so sits home continuing to add to her already hefty frame due to fast food and snacks. The 4 yr old weighs 85 lbs. They receive food stamps, Medicaid, free housing and utilities. They also have cable, a computer, the kids are in private school, take dance lessons and vacation.
Meanwhile, when my kids were young - we maybe ordered pizza once a month as I paid for groceries. I kept track of what the kids ate and drank, using coupons for shopping, as I had to pay the dental, doctor and grocery bills from our paychecks. Cells phones - I have a tracfone - $10 and good for emergenicies - they don't need more. First vacation we took as we had to wait till we could afford it - the kids were 7 and 10 years old and it wasn't to Disney Worl.
I believe that these programs were created for the good of the people and many are helped by them - but the abuse of these programs by many is what has many working lower and middle class Americans up in arms.
When I actually see people thankful for these programs instead of feeling they deserve these programs - then I'll change my mind.
With the economy, many have had to go on Medicaid for the short term until things improve, which may not be likely with Obamacare as so many businesses are cutting hours so employees don't qualify for health insurance. The hospitals in my area have already had these cuts for all the nurses and that's why so many of them are up in arms.
IF your story is true (and I strongly doubt it) you need to turn the family in for fraud, because the entire household income, married or not, is supposed to be used to calculate benefits. If they're receiving benefits and not counting in the dad's salary, it isn't a problem with medicaid--they're breaking the law. I'm guessing this is just another fantasy family made up to try to justify your point.
I'm just surprised it wasn't another story about a Welfare Queen driving a BMW, or the law student who got foodstamps and said they had it better on social services than when he was later making $100K a year. At least you get points for making up a new story.
Because the vast majority of people on medicaid have busted their azzes all their lives and paid taxes like the rest of us. I hope that if one day due to unforeseen circumstances, I find myself on medicaid, I will get the same care as I have always gotten. Most people on medicaid are seniors and children anyway. Should we give them less than standard care?
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