In some US states, not poor enough for health care
August 14, 2012 by CARLA K. JOHNSON in Health
Sandra Pico is poor, but not poor enough. She makes about $15,000 a year, supporting her daughter and unemployed husband. She thought she'd get health insurance after the Supreme Court this year upheld President Barack Obama's health care law.
Then she heard that her state's governor won't agree to the federal plan to extend Medicaid coverage to people like her in two years.
"You fall through the cracks and there's nothing you can do about it," said the 52-year-old. "It makes me feel like garbage, like the American dream, my dream in my homeland, is not being accomplished."
Many working parents like Pico are below the federal poverty line but don't qualify for Medicaid, a decades-old state-federal health insurance program and the nation's single largest insurer. That's especially true in states where conservative governors say they'll reject the Medicaid expansion under Obama's health law.
In Florida, making $11,000 a year is too much for Medicaid for a family of three. In Mississippi, $8,200 a year is too much. In Louisiana and Texas, earning more than just $5,000 a year makes you ineligible for Medicaid.
Governors in those states, as well as South Carolina, have said they'll reject the Medicaid expansion underpinning Obama's health law after the Supreme Court's decision gave states that option. Many of those hurt by the decision are working parents.
When the Supreme Court ruled that states could opt out of the health law's Medicaid expansion, it raised the chances for inequity at a time when more Americans have fallen from the middle class into poverty, said Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
"Why should a sick person in Connecticut have access to health care when they don't in Mississippi and Texas?" Sawhill asked. "We really do have a very high level of poverty as a result of the recession. And the safety net is weaker than ever."
Governors who object to the expansion are in favor of smaller government.
"We don't need the federal government telling us what to do when it comes to meeting the needs of the citizens of our states," Florida Gov. Rick Scott wrote recently in an opinion piece for U.S. News and World Report.
Many conservatives view Medicaid as a wasteful, highly flawed program. Many doctors across the country won't treat Medicaid patients because the payments they receive are so low.
The presidential election is less than three month away. Republican challenger Mitt Romney's new running mate, conservative congressman Paul Ryan, has a budget plan that would turn Medicaid over to the states and sharply limit federal dollars.
Medicaid now covers an estimated 70 million Americans and would cover an estimated 7 million more in 2014 under the Obama health law's expansion. In contrast, Ryan's plan could mean 14 million to 27 million Americans would ultimately lose coverage, even beyond the effect of a repeal of the health law, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation of Ryan's 2011 budget plan.
The political rhetoric during a presidential campaign focuses on the middle class and leaves the uninsured working poor largely invisible, said Rand Corp. researcher Dr. Art Kellermann.
"We hear a lot of talk about unemployment and the aspirations of middle-class Americans. But we don't hear about the consequences of unemployment and the consequences of the collapsing middle class," Kellermann said. Losing health insurance is one of those consequences.
Most states cover children in low-income families. Manuel and Sandra Pico's 15-year-old daughter is covered by Medicaid. But the Miami couple can't afford private insurance for themselves. Sandra Pico would like to work full time but can't afford to pay someone to watch her 34-year-old sister, who has Down syndrome.
"No matter how hard I work, I'm not going to get anywhere," Sandra Pico said. "If you're not rich, you just don't have it."
In most of the states where governors are rejecting or leaning against the expansion, the income level that disqualifies a parent from Medicaid is stunningly low.
In contrast, states where governors have said they'll expand Medicaid are more generous with working parents. The Medicaid eligibility cutoff ranges in those states from Washington's $13,527 to Minnesota's $39,840.
The national health law's Medicaid expansion would start covering all citizens in 2014 who make up to roughly $15,400 for an individual, $30,650 for a family of four.
The federal government will pay the full cost of the Medicaid expansion through 2016. After that, the states will only pick up 5 percent of the cost through 2019, and 10 percent of the cost thereafter.
Medicaid was created in 1965 as a companion program to welfare cash assistance to single parents. Today, the elderly and disabled cost nearly 70 cents of every Medicaid dollar, not the stereotypical single mother and her children.
What's largely unknown to many Americans is who is left out of the safety net, said Cheryl Camillo, a senior researcher at Mathematica Policy Research. "A huge chunk of the populace is not covered, even by Medicaid," she said.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
-
Poorest Americans at risk if states opt out of Medicaid expansion
Aug 06, 2012 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Gov. Perry says Texas won't expand Medicaid
Jul 10, 2012 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Budget office: Obama's health law reduces deficit
Jul 25, 2012 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Obama's health care law
Mar 23, 2012 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Expanding Medicaid to low-income adults leads to improved health, fewer deaths: study
Jul 25, 2012 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Motion perception revisited: High Phi effect challenges established motion perception assumptions
Apr 23, 2013 |
3 / 5 (2) |
2
-
Anything you can do I can do better: Neuromolecular foundations of the superiority illusion (Update)
Apr 02, 2013 |
4.5 / 5 (11) |
5
-
The visual system as economist: Neural resource allocation in visual adaptation
Mar 30, 2013 |
5 / 5 (2) |
9
-
Separate lives: Neuronal and organismal lifespans decoupled
Mar 27, 2013 |
4.9 / 5 (8) |
0
-
Sizing things up: The evolutionary neurobiology of scale invariance
Feb 28, 2013 |
4.8 / 5 (10) |
14
-
Classical and Quantum Mechanics via Lie algebras
Apr 15, 2011
- More from Physics Forums - Independent Research
More news stories
Do doctors understand the individualisation of treatments?
The individualisation of drug treatments to support patients to self-manage their conditions is a concept that sits at the heart of policy, but a recent study in BMJ Open shows that there is no concrete defini ...
Health
43 minutes ago |
not rated yet |
0
Keep summer water fun safe with training and supervision
Fun in the summer often means kids spending time in the water, whether at a pool, the beach, a lake or river. A pediatric safety expert at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) stresses proper training ...
Health
1 hour ago |
not rated yet |
0
Pregnant bellies: Updating the tape measure technique
A new way of interpreting information from a low-tech, age-old method used in pregnancy care is expected to more accurately identify potential health issues for mothers and babies.
Health
1 hour ago |
not rated yet |
0
Obesity weighs down on top soda guzzler Mexico
Artemio Martinez balanced his corpulent frame on a stool in a Mexico City street taco stand, downing a sweet soda and eating a final pork-filled corn tortilla.
Health
3 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
Consumers largely underestimating calorie content of fast food
People eating at fast food restaurants largely underestimate the calorie content of meals, especially large ones, according to a paper published today in BMJ.
Health
15 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
Engineered cytomegalovirus protects monkeys from HIV equivalent
(Medical Xpress)—A new study by researchers in the US has shown that an ancient virus can be modified to help in the fight against the simian immunodeficiency virus SIV, which is the equivalent in monkeys ...
Help at hand for people with schizophrenia
How can healthy people who hear voices help schizophrenics? Finding the answer for this is at the centre of research conducted at the University of Bergen.
Scientists put bowel cancer under the microscope
Researchers from London's Kingston University have begun a two-year study which could help prolong the lives of people with colorectal tumours.
New neuron formation could increase capacity for new learning, at the expense of old memories
New research presented today shows that formation of new neurons in the hippocampus - a brain region known for its importance in learning and remembering - could cause forgetting of old memories by causing a reorganization ...
Are there atheists in foxholes? Study says they're the minority
Ernie Pyle – an iconic war correspondent in World War II – reportedly said "There are no atheists in foxholes." A new joint study between two brothers at Cornell and Virginia Wesleyan found that only ...
Breathing exercises help veterans find peace after war, scholar says
(Medical Xpress)—Research by Stanford scholar Emma Seppala at the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education found that post-traumatic stress disorder decreased in veterans who participated ...