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So much wasted on people who don't want to eat healthy and smokers. I think red meat should also be off limits to Medicaid covered.
So much care is going to people who don't want to be healthy. They should also replace the EBT with fruit and veggie vouchers and food boxes like what President Trump proposes.
I am all for Medicaid as long as the people on it eat a very healthy lifestyle. States need to be pro-active getting as many people off as possible, while retaining it for those want to live a healthy lifestyle.
States should not complain about how Medicaid is crowding out other spending when the easy solution is retain benefits for those who want live a healthy lifestyle as opposed to people smoking and eating unhealthy retaining Medicaid.
Medicaid recipients should have their grocery bills as a jobs programs done by people who need a job as an employment program and those who don't healthy should a month to change their eating habits or lose coverage.
Cigarette smokers shouldn't be able to have Medicaid coverage, I do believe that those who smoke marijuana
under a doctor's care should be able to continue to do so and retain Medicaid.
States should not complain about how Medicaid is crowding out other spending when the easy solution is retain benefits for those who want live a healthy lifestyle as opposed to people smoking and eating unhealthy retaining Medicaid.
Medicaid recipients should have their grocery bills as a jobs programs done by people who need a job as an employment program and those who don't healthy should a month to change their eating habits or lose coverage.
Shall we start at the top, the White House?
Quote:
Originally Posted by lovecrowds
Cigarette smokers shouldn't be able to have Medicaid coverage, I do believe that those who smoke marijuana
under a doctor's care should be able to continue to do so and retain Medicaid.
Then Congress should be barred from taking tobacco $$$.
Studies have shown that those people have less impact on health care cost than healthy lifestyles. They die younger. They don't make it into nursing homes.
If it is about economics maybe we show tax healthy people.
I don't disagree with your premise but doctors, nurses and hospitals general do not refuse care to anyone, even criminals and those that abuse themselves. The government allows the same individuals/institutions to file for reimbursement for care so they do. They like to get paid just like everyone else.
Now if you cut Medicaid from self abusers, you also need to establish controls to define who an abuser is. Then you have to offer legal protection to doctors, nurses and hospitals so they can say, you have been identified as an abuser and therefore we do not have to and will not treat you.
Now that opens a whole new can of worms like, "I did not break my arm because I am fat, you need to treat the broken arm." That is just the beginning. Many medical issues are not clear cut. Doctors can disagree on diagnosis and underlying causes. Did diabetes cause the tissue necrosis? Did obesity cause the diabetes? Did obesity come from lack of exercise and overeating or was there a metabolic issue? Was poverty an issue? Now we get into cultural and environmental issues. The next thing you know, race and ethnicity enters the picture.
When you have it all planned and figured out, please send the solution to me. I will advocate in every way I can.
Eating mostly "fruits and veggies" isn't exactly "healthy". Metabolic health is found in metabolic adjustments (eating frequency mostly), not macronutrient adjustments. Unless you are saying that clinical starvation and all that comes with it (muscle and organ wasting) is "healthy" when you replace complex carbohydrates with plant fiber and fructose.
Few people can fully detail why some people get and stay fat and others can't put on a pound no matter how much they eat.
The closes guesses factor in stress (often form poverty), frequency of eating over what is eaten, age, and sleep times and duration.
The takeaway is that government bureaucrats are not nutritionists, doctors, nor social workers. That makes their opinion on what people should and should not eat to get healthy as worthwhile as that of most anyone else: pretty worthless. Certainly not worth enough to make public policy decisions to control nutrition. Preventing career bureaucrats from making such dumb decisions for the populous, soviet style, is why America values "freedom" so much.
Here's the truth Love, or something pretty close to it. We are all ticking time-bombs. Some will go off earlier in life, and some will wait a good long while before detonating. I personally have known "healthy" people who have been plagued by ailments for most of their adult lives, and I know smokers who are in their 80's and 90's who exhibit no ill effects from their years of smoking. Everyone's body is different, so trying to save money by regulating what people can eat or smoke won't change a thing. People die of lung cancer who have never smoked a day in their lives, vegetarians who exercise daily end up hospitalized by unexplained heart attacks, strokes, etc.
I mean sure, you can tell people that not smoking and giving up red meat will improve their chances for a healthy and long life. But honestly, it's all a game of chance. I may be able to smoke and eat steak every day until I'm 90, or I might die young or end up in a hospital with a condition completely unrelated to smoking. But by your standards, if I were a person who smokes and eats steak I should be denied benefits, even though my eating habits or smoking habits may have never caused me a bit of pain or trouble.
I think you simply need to realize that people do not have to live by your standards in order to qualify for the same benefits as you. It could very well turn out that the meat-eating smoker who lives next door to you will never spend a day of his/her life in the hospital, while you, on the other hand, end up costing the tax payers a bundle because even though you lived super healthy, chance caught up with you. That's why you can't set standards in this way. If health and longevity were somehow guaranteed to those who don't smoke and eat healthy, while on the other hand it was guaranteed that those who don't live that way would get sick and cost the tax payers more money, then sure, establish those kinds of rules. But there are no guarantees in life, so that will never be the case.
PS. But seriously, smoking sucks! I know life is already a game of Russian roulette, and anyone could go at anytime for all kinds of reasons. However, I would concede that while not all smokers suffer ill effects from smoking, it is sort of like playing the game with an extra bullet in the cylinder.
Medicaid also pays for nursing homes. Should they not pay for elderly in nursing homes that are obese? What about Medicare? Medicare recipients only pay about a third of their benefits, we pay the rest. Should Medicare recipients only get a third of the benefits because they smoke or are obese? Propose it and let's watch it play out.
Why should we pay to educate people through the 12th grade when they show no evidence of being capable of rational thought? Maybe they should be required to repay the cost of their education back to the taxpayers.
The third leading cause of death in the US is medical errors. So we should not allow Medicaid recipients to go to doctors or to hospitals - it is proven to be bad for your health.
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We are all ticking time-bombs. Some will go off earlier in life, and some will wait a good long while before detonating. I personally have known "healthy" people who have been plagued by ailments for most of their adult lives, and I know smokers who are in their 80's and 90's who exhibit no ill effects from their years of smoking. Everyone's body is different, so trying to save money by regulating what people can eat or smoke won't change a thing. People die of lung cancer who have never smoked a day in their lives, vegetarians who exercise daily end up hospitalized by unexplained heart attacks, strokes, etc. 
