Affordable Care Act and Medicaid

Posted on December 2, 2013 by admin

• In rural Kentucky, health-care debate takes back seat as the long-uninsured line up, By Stephanie McCrummen, November 23, 2013, Washington Post: “On the campaign trail, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was still blasting the new health-care law as unsalvageable. At the White House, President Obama was still apologizing for the botched federal Web site. But in a state where the rollout has gone smoothly, and in a county that is one of the poorest and unhealthiest in the country, Courtney Lively has been busy signing people up: cashiers from the IGA grocery, clerks from the dollar store, workers from the lock factory, call-center agents, laid-off coal miners, KFC cooks, Chinese green-card holders in town to teach Appalachian students…”
• Medicaid expansion’s tale of two states: Kentucky ‘haves’ vs. Indiana ‘have-nots’, By Laura Unger, December 1, 2013, Louisville Courier-Journal: “Lorinda Fox of New Albany, Ind., hasn’t been to a doctor since her last child was born 21 years ago. Poor and uninsured, she treats her illnesses with over-the-counter remedies. At age 58, she knows she’s taking chances with her health, especially since she recently began having heart palpitations and chest pain. ‘I’ll do the same thing I always do — gut it out,’ said Fox, who lives with her hearing-impaired daughter and earns about $12,000 a year working in retail. ‘I don’t know what else I can do.’ If Fox lived in Kentucky, she would qualify for expanded Medicaid next year under the Affordable Care Act. But she lives in a state where she makes too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid, and politicians have chosen not to expand Medicaid as Obamacare intended, contending that Indiana taxpayers can’t afford it…”
• Michigan embraces Medicaid expansion to help inmates, By Guy Gugliotta, November 30, 2013, Washington Post: “When Medicaid expands next year under the federal health-care law to include all adults living close to the poverty line, one group of eligible beneficiaries will be several million men and women who have spent time in state and federal prisons and jails. The Justice Department estimates that former inmates and detainees will constitute about 35 percent of the people who will qualify for Medicaid coverage in the states expanding their programs to anyone earning less than 138 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $15,000 for an individual in 2013. The Congressional Budget Office estimated earlier this year that 9 million people will get the new coverage next year…”