The Expansion Of Medicaid

During Johnson’s presidency, the federal government significantly extended its domestic responsibilities in attempt to transform the nation to what Johnson called the “Great Society,” in which poverty and racial intolerance ceased to exist. A previously unsurpassed amount of legislation was passed during this time; numerous laws were passed to protect the environment, keep consumers safe, reduce unfairness in education, improve housing in urban areas, provide more assistance to the elderly with health care, and other policies to improve welfare. Johnson called for a “War on Poverty,” and directed more funds to help the poor; government spending towards the poor

As we become older, issues with our health begin to take affect and finding ways to fund for that care is becoming even more difficult. In the article “Some Elders Must Take Drastic Measures to Obtain Long-term Care”, national magazine journalist Mary A. Fischer (2011) states that many Americans must face demeaning and disempowering choices in order to qualify for Medicaid or Medicare—federal funded health insurance programs— such as refusing to pay for a spouses institutionalization, divorce, and spending down assets. The author argues that these choices leave the healthy spouse with decreased funds to plan for their own retirement expense (Fisher, 2011). Working in the health care field for 4 years, along with my family’s own personal experiences I can relate to this article, since I have seen a variety of ways that federal funded health insurances have been unable to meet the expectations and demands of its beneficiaries.

Texas, which currently has a large uninsured population and limited Medicaid eligibility, forfeits billions of dollars from the federal government every year by not expanding its Medicaid program as implemented in the Affordable Care Act. In contrast, Medicaid expansion could benefit the state exponentially and give its citizens the fullest potential of what this country offers. A substantial amount of federal funding that could increase uninsured coverage, improve healthcare costs, and provide economic stimulus is left on the table. Additionally, the nation benefits when each state participates, contributing to the success of the healthcare reform.

In every day life one must make decisions, and with decisions there comes options from which to choose from. One decision from Texas that has caused concerned has ties to one of the provisions in the Affordable Care Act. This provision wants to expand Medicaid coverage to low income Americans. However, the Supreme Court ruled a decision to make the Medicaid expansion optional for states. Therefore, Texas opted out on this idea but is still indecisive on weather or not this expansion is beneficial to the state. As we all know factors like politics enter into the mix, as does the costs of the expansion, availability, and quality of care for these new “enrollees”. The idea of medical care for all seems like a simple effective idea, but the effects overall is detrimental to Texas citizens like myself and my family, who doesn’t necessarily fit into this “mold” of the uninsured citizen the act is trying to attract. The decision Texas made to not expand, in my opinion is a reflection of all citizens who feel that they will not benefit from this implicated Medicaid program.

Just like the New Deal program created by FDR, Lyndon Johnson established his “Great Society” plan in 1964 which was works of a set of domestic programs much like FDR to eliminate poverty by establishing new major spending programs that addressed to medical care, urban problems, and rural

As a health policy analyst for the state of Texas which has not elected to expand Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and now has been notified that the state leaders have taking into reconsideration their recent decision during an upcoming session in order that we begin gathering data on the benefits of adapting the Medicaid expansion. As a health policy analyst our goal is to assure data quality, interpret data, and discover new information in the data. Medicaid is a federal and state partnership with shared authority that is a health insurance program for low-income individuals, children, their parents, the people with disabilities and the elderly. Nationally Medicaid covers health care for over 72 million people. Even though participation is optional, all 50 states participate in the Medicaid program. However, Medicaid benefits eligibility varies widely among the states all states must meet federal minimum requirements, but they have options for expanding Medicaid beyond the minimum federal guideline (http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/affordable-care-act-expansion.aspx). In this research we will identify the state of interest which is Texas, compare the state’s decision, determine the alternate approaches to expanding access and provide a recommendation on whether or not the state should opt in to the Medicaid expansion.

Expanding Medicaid under the new Affordable Care Act, or Obama Care as it has been dubbed, is a serious issue affecting not only the 47.5 million citizens on it according the to the U.S. Census Bureau (2012), but also 5.7 million more struggling United States Citizens needing medical care (2014). By expanding Medicaid, it would mean access to affordable health insurance, preventative care and new jobs created. On An 6-3 decision, those incomparable court upheld a discriminating some piece of the moderate mind Act, memorable human services change that the President marked under theory five a considerable length of time agnus dei. Now, a large number about Americans who got secured over wellbeing protection marketplaces could sit tight

Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society altered the character and scope of the federal government by making a significant statement by the social programs he put into to place and by sending help to the public in order to battle poverty after his declaration that he had begun a war on poverty. It directly acknowledged that the American people needed help and that help was in the process of coming. The character of the

Expanding Medicaid was supposed to to be a main element in the states wide acceptance of the Affordable Care Act, because Medicaid’s sole purpose is to provide coverage for all uninsured adults. Medicaid is mainly used by the working poor or those who don 't make enough money to pay for health insurance on their own. The expansion, however, is part of ObamaCare and Texans hate it, despite the numerous money problems that not accepting it causes. An example would be, the 100 billion dollars that the federal government has set aside for Medicaid over the course of ten years. Even though it seems that the insurance is doing good for many states, Texas Governor Rick Perry could not opt out fast enough. His reasoning behind the

In a traditionalist state, such as Texas, the financial toll that Medicaid would have on its taxpayers was on the frontlines. The Texas legislature was worried about whether or not its taxpayers would face a tax increase to cover the increased cost of those covered by Medicaid. These taxpayers would inadvertently pay for the hospital bills of those who are uninsured in Texas through an average $1,800 rise in the cost of their premiums (Rapoport, 2012). In support of expanding Medicaid, Texas would receive federal funds in order to ease the cost that accompany the expansion. Since Texas decided not to expand Medicaid, Texas “would be leaving billions and billions of federal dollars on the table” according to Anne Dunkelberg (Rapoport, 2012). Not only does this monetary incentive give Texas an extra push to participate towards expanding Medicaid but it would also help the residents of the state to get insured. Texas legislators understood that this monetary incentive would not fully cover the cost of the newly enrolled Medicaid recipients. In the end, they would have to rework the annual budget and increase taxes in order to cover these extra recipients.

When we start to see how much changed Texas which is as complex and diverse, we realize the qualities that it has. Texas has a Constitution that defines and protects a history of conservative political thought and independent self. It is a place with great variety and diversity of population, millions and millions of people in a big state, big territory, racial origins, different cultures, traditions, ethnic diversity, interests, complex economic activities, extremely significant regional variations but also is a conservative state. Going to the exact point, when we talk about Texas and whose the society, we are talking about the people and the government, political culture, and embracing all that common in the context of people's values, traditions, behaviors marked, and exactly because everything is linked to the policy, which is the separation of powers, which are the legislative, executive, judicial, and checks and balances.

The Medicaid revisions and expansion under the ACA, exhibited the federal government overstepping their power as they tried to penalize any state governments in opposition of the expansion, consequently, taking away states’ power. The Medicaid Expansion Mandate would’ve compelled states to join due to the loss of federal funding towards Medicaid if they did not adhere to (Phi Le, par.40). The Supreme Court hearing allowed states to have a choice whether or not to participate in the expansion without a total loss of their Medicaid funding. In return, states who didn't participate wouldn’t receive additional funding that coupled with this mandate that required inclusion, extending coverage of those who were at “Income below or ar 133% federal

Medicare and Medicaid has been providing huge benefits for senior citizens and low income families. The one question nobody seems to answer is how are we going to afford this type of insurance? Maya Rockeymoore argues in her article, “Groundless Fears about Medicaid and Medicare,” that we are able to afford this as long as we make good decisions. Rockeymoore claims that we need to keep Medicare and Medicaid or our country will fall apart.

Medicaid is a system of inflexible mandates, one-size-fits-all requirements, and wasteful, bureaucratic inefficiencies. Expanding it as the PPACA provides would only exacerbate the failure of the current system, and would threaten even Texas with financial ruin (Perry, 2012).

Also by rejecting the Medicaid expansion community-based providers, including hospitals are casualties. Hospitals will continue to provide care to the uninsured without sufficient compensation, increasing shift costs to the privately insured. This also has a chilling effect on enrollment in private insurance plans through the new federally facilitated marketplace. Opposing the Medicaid expansion also ignores the real needs of the uninsured and the massive financial burden shouldered not only by the hospitals but taxpayers and businesses. (Stultz, 27)