Health Services, Mental Health, Healthcare And Community Based Living Services

The Medicare and Medicaid federal programs were put in place as a way to help the less fortunate. Individuals with severe disabilities or over the age of 65 qualify for Medicare. This program helps them with health coverage, so the disabled and elderly who have Medicare do not have to worry about their medical bills and not going to the hospital when they are sick. Medicaid is a similar program, however, it only applies to low income families who cannot provide for their children. Similar to Medicare, this program covers any health related problems and takes away the worry and troubles that come with hospital bills.

Medicaid is a social health care program that covers nearly 60 million Americans, including children, pregnant women, seniors, parents and individuals suffering with disabilities. Medicaid is the biggest source of funding for health related services and medical needs for the people with low income in the United States. This program is funded jointly by the state and federal level governments, but it is the state’s responsibility to manage this program. The Medicaid program is not a required program that states have to use, but all 50 states have implemented this program. With the introduction of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and its passing in 2010, the ACA unveiled its plans to expand Medicaid eligibility to nearly all low-income adults as an addition to the other groups that fall into the Medicaid eligibility. The Medicaid program had “many gaps in coverage for adults” because it was only restricted to the low income individuals and other people with needs in their own specific category. In the past, the majority of the states who had adults that did not have children dependent on those parents were not eligible for Medicaid. These low income adults without dependent children would be without medical insurance assistance before the ACA was introduced. Medicaid is now available to all Americans under the age of 65 whose family income is at or below the federal poverty guideline of “133 percent or $14,484 for an individual and $29,726 for a family of four in 2011” (NSCL).

According to Heller and Factor (as cited in Wood & Jackson, 2003) the number of “older adults age 60 and older who are diagnosed with mental retardation or developmental disabilities is expected to reach 1,065,000 by 2030.” In fact, “in the last 30 years, the life expectancy of people with intellectual disability has increased more dramatically than that of the general population” (Bigby, 2010). Doka and Lavin (2003) report that advances in medical care and a shift to deinstitutionalization have contributed to this increase in life expectancy for developmentally disabled adults. Increasingly, federal policy has linked addressing the housing needs of older adults with those of low-income and non-elderly disabled individuals, according to

In the past most of the people with learning disabilities suffered regularly from discrimination. All to often people with learning disabilities aren't considered worth living and they are the subject of

1.1 Identify Legislation and policies that are designed to promote the human rights, inclusion, equal life chances and citizenship of individuals with learning disabilities.

Medicaid, which is a separate federal funded insurance was intended to cover low-income, aged, blind, disabled individuals, parents, and their dependent children on welfare. However, the senior citizens are the population group most likely to be living in poverty, and only about half of these individuals have insurance coverage. The difference between 1965 and now, of course, is costs. Years ago spending more on health care in result covering more people were the whole point. The administration wants to broaden coverage, but cut spending.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 49 million Americans without healthcare insurance and more than 10 million are non-U.S. citizens (http://www.census.gov). Because many people are uninsured and those that do have insurance pay high deductibles, Americans often dismiss the need for doctor’s visits for minor problems or annual physicals. As a result, health problems that can be detected at an early stage or prevented altogether become major illnesses. Individuals with disabilities hold one of the biggest weaknesses in the healthcare system because they cannot often obtain affordable health coverage.

Most people do not know how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will affect them because the main groups of people that are affected are the uninsured population and vulnerable population. The number of vulnerable populations is increasing and if the establishment of policies and programs fail to improve the health of this population, then it will be extremely difficult to contain the cost of care in the United States (Knickman & Kovner, 2015). The goals of the ACA are to significantly

The state of Texas has pulled its Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood, leaving poor residents with few options for affordable healthcare. Medicaid, a program focused on helping low-income families and individuals receive healthcare, has always been jointly operated by the state and the federal government. But to who this program would be eligible for is entirely up to the state. More conservative states, like Texas for example, strictly reserve Medicaid for only the most severe cases of poverty-stricken families, leaving a large portion of low-income residents uninsured. The Affordable Care Act, a federally mandated reform of Medicaid introduced by President Obama, would provide healthcare for many American citizens in need. Despite being

This is forcing the doctors to no longer accept certain insurance companies such as medicaid because they aren’t being reimbursed for the services they’re providing to the consumers that are using medicaid. One doctor, Dr. Martha Boone in Atlanta, Georgia, said that she would have to see 20 patients an hour in order to make any reimbursement from medicaid. She said that medicaid paid none of their bills coming from her office for 18 months and when her office sent registered letters to Medicaid to see what the problem was they said it was a computer error and still didn’t reimburse her office (Heritage, 2010). Because most doctors don’t receive money from Medicaid, most of them don’t accept it. “Of the 93 internists affiliated with New York-Presbyterian Hospital, for example, only 37 accept Medicare, according to the hospital’s Web site.” (Connelly, 2009). This forces the Medicaid consumers to go to the emergency room when they need help since normal doctors rarely take their insurance. Dr. Lloyd Krieger says that the undoing of this healthcare bill is, “an urgent necessity.” because it is, “doing great damage even years before it’s individual mandates and other controls kick in.” (Krieger, 2011).

     The preventative care also follows to Medicaid problems. As Medicaid only covers some people like children and people with disabilities, it only covers half of the medical expenses. For the elderly and the disabled, it doesn’t cover long-term nursing home care or prescription medications. (Reese) If things weren’t bad enough, Bush administration has opposed broad cuts to Medicaid by up to ten billion dollars. This is

It has been widely speculated by many concerned American citizens that the Trump administration will cause a potentially cataclysmic abandonment of aide and support with specific regards to disabled Americans who are reliant on the Affordable Care Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

yet, the survey shows a dramatic change in the public opinion for Obamacare, simply because they just don’t like it. The GOP’s plan to replace Obamacare will negatively impact 75 Million (1 in 4 American) enrollees in the nation’s biggest health care program (Medicaid) which includes Handicaps and elderly (around 65% of the program expenditures), Children and Adults (Around 35% of the program expenditures) from the middle and below middle income class individuals, according to Peter G. Peterson Foundation and the Kaiser Family Foundation. However, Medicaid is critical for the Middle/Low-income households, 12.9 million women in productive age (15 - 44), and the people of color (especially, Black and Hispanic), according to Kaiser.

All they want is to take part of society as a normal individual. The disability-movement has fought for the disabilities rights throughout the years and has achieved goals such as accommodation of architectural infrastructures to serve better people who are physical impairments. The public policies have been great accomplishments because it has helped people with disabilities to be part of society. The disability-movement points out the healthcare finance policies have taken freedom away from the disability community, “ Health-care financing policies force disabled people into Institutions and nursing homes rather than funding independent living. Income-maintenance and public health-insurance policies include “disincentives” that penalize disabled individuals for trying to work productively.”(p.4). The government has done a great job on protecting disabled individuals’ rights. However, the health-care system has isolated this group even more by restricting the level of productivity that they have within the system, as a result this medical model marginalizes this group of people and this program available for this community does not fully address their issues.

While analyzing the article by Parish et. al (2008) the reader could tell that having a child with a disability can cause financial hardships effecting the family’s meals, housing, and telephone services. As the research suggests 28% of children with disabilities are below the national poverty level (Parish et. al, 2008). The research would suggest the biggest barrier for families with a child with a disability would be money. Therefore parents may not be able to pay for services that could benefit their child.