What is Medicaid Expansion all about? Part of the ACA included the expansion of Medicaid coverage. This Creates a new Medicaid group - Newly Eligible Individuals age 19 up to 65 who: ◦Have income below 138% FPL ◦Meet citizenship requirements ◦Are not incarcerated ◦Are not entitled to Medicare These are individuals that do not make enough to purchase policies from the exchanges yet make too much for the current Medicaid requirements. Natioally this represents over 5 million people. In Texas this leaves 1,043,000 Texasn in the Medicaid Gap. What this means for those left in the Medicaid Gap. In Texas this means that we still have the highest population of uninsured citizens in the nation. These individuals have little choice but to continue to obstruct Emergency Rooms all around Texas to seek treatment for themselves and their children . Again no health care resourses is in itself a death sentence for many. Why Medicaid Expansion makes good economic sense. By choosing not to participate, Texas, for example, will lose an estimated $9.58 billion in federal funding by 2022. Taking into account federal taxes paid by Texas residents, the net cost to taxpayers in the state in 2022 will be more than $9.2 billion. States expanding Medicaid will get, on average, more than twice as much in federal funding than they get in federal highway funds. Medicaid is usually a cost-sharing program – the federal government pays on average about 57 percent of costs and states pay the rest. But under the expansion, the federal government will pay 100 percent of the additional costs for the first three years. States will have to kick in a very small percentage more each year after that. By 2020, the federal government will pay 90 percent of the costs. States would not only get the direct federal money, but would save the money that taxpayers end up spending on so-called uncompensated care – when sick or injured uninsured people show up in emergency rooms seeking treatment. No state would experience a positive flow of funds by choosing to reject the Medicaid expansion. Because the federal share of the Medicaid expansion is so much greater than the state share, taxpayers in non-participating states will nonetheless bear a significant share of the overall cost of the expansion through federal tax payments—and not enjoy any of the benefits,” the Commonwealth Fund report concludes. That means our tax money will go to pay for healthcare in those states that expanded Medicaid. How does refusing to expand Medicaid make sense?
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 18:17:06 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015