With Obamacare, why don't we shut down Medicaid? (health care, solutions, how much)
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You could subsidize long-term care insurance, which is already being sold, under that sort of framework. If we're going down the road of having government involvement in long-term care and Medicaid for All, however, I think Medicare for All would be the best option, though it is a budget-buster currently while only covering a fraction of the population. For some reason Medicare seems less susceptible to the pitfalls that I outline below than many (most?) other government programs. This is consistent with other countries' single-payer health care plans being much more successful than most U.S. government programs in other areas.
To the OP, Medicaid is a big drain on the budget and is not much of a help in terms of health care, considering that very few doctors take it, and for old recipients there is a nasty little provision called "estate recovery", whereby the government basically steals inheritances from innocent adult children who have expected something all their lives. The livelihood and financial futures of the heirs are pulled out from under them, with the government's greed (far exceeding the private sector, c.f. the IRS) and relative lack of legal protections for the "debtors" completing a picture that looks more like a Gilded Age tie-the-heiress-on-the-tracks program than a welfare program that helps people. In this way it functions as a backdoor estate tax that targets the poor and middle class with very high rates. I don't doubt that people are helped by the program, but that help comes at a very steep price, so steep as to not be worth it.
Of course, if you have no assets in the first place you're not affected, and people who have big estates routinely hire lawyers to shift around their assets into trusts years before death so that they are not affected by Medicaid. It's the people who have assets but not enough assets to do estate planning that get hit by Medicaid - in other words, the middle class that is striving to build on and grow what little assets they have to become wealthier and live the American Dream. When most people in a country receive a sizable inheritance from their parents and build on it as they earn money, that is a boon to the middle class, and goes a long way towards raising living standards for future generations. If every generation has to start over from scratch, that makes it a lot harder for them to get ahead, and it is for this reason I think Medicaid contributed to the stagnation of the middle class over the past four decades. At any rate, the systematic discrimination against these people is unconscionable, and in my view is sufficient reason to abolish Medicaid altogether. The greed of the government, colluding with the medical industry to get their piece of the estate pie, combined with the conflict of interest that produces a lack of legal protections* demonstrates the inherent pitfalls of these sort of government programs.
*Imagine if credit card companies had absolute power to write the laws that govern credit card debt. That's basically the situation with many of these government programs. Student loans, for example, cannot be discharged through bankruptcy, and I suppose it is just a coincidence that the federal government is the top dog of the student loan market .
You do know Republicans would never accept Medicare for all even though the love Medicare to death. They are willing to accept some Medicaid knowing that some of it goes to their base those over 65. Not sure why people over 65 should be immune from health care costs including their assets. Everyone else pays. Isnt this the Republican argument that people don't need insurance and should just pay out of their pocket. I am guessing you support that.
You do know Republicans would never accept Medicare for all even though the love Medicare to death. They are willing to accept some Medicaid knowing that some of it goes to their base those over 65. Not sure why people over 65 should be immune from health care costs including their assets. Everyone else pays. Isnt this the Republican argument that people don't need insurance and should just pay out of their pocket. I am guessing you support that.
What do you think is an average cost per month for someone on Medicare?
Don't Google it first....give us what you thought it is when you wrote that post.
Because mediciad is a huge part of insuring lower income groups in ACA .Many will not be allowed to buy into the exchanges because states will assume large cost share of medicaid in 217 in many states that do not reject the increased federal monies now.Nelsen(D) of Nebraska got a exemption for increase cost because he said it would bankrupt his state in the original bill.Ther are a lot of increases in taxes such as medical devices;excise tax on so called cadallic plans and state increases in medicaid cost that start to take effect over the coming years.
Why would we ever think that the best approach would be to force people who have effective and efficient health care financing, and by this I am referring to both Medicaid and Medicare, to send their money to the parasitic insurance companies? If anything we should do the opposite: give everyone access to Medicaid and Medicare and abolish the insurance companies.
Given that people are required to purchase insurance under Obamacare, and that subsidies are available for low-income people...why do we still have Medicaid? Seems redundant to have both programs. If current Medicaid recipients were moved onto an Obamacare plan we could shut down and entire government entitlement. Why isn't that a win for everyone?
You all cant even get ACA delayed 1 year and you want to undo medicare? LOL
Medicaid is available for the indigent. Medicare is for the elderly or disabled. Medicaid is very minimal insurance, but the ACA actually expands it. It's up to each state, but federal funds were provided to each state to expand it. The states could opt to not select it, and some didn't at first because of the cost to the taxpayers.
Only the UK spends less on doctors income as a percentage of total health care soendinf than the USA.
While we are at it. Aren't most American workers overpaid?
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