States and Medicaid

Posted on August 14, 2012 by townsend

• Making $11,000 a year, but excluded from Medicaid, By Kelli Kennedy (AP), August 14, 2012, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “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 be able to get health insurance after the Supreme Court upheld President Barack Obama’s health care law. Then she heard that her own governor won’t agree to the federal plan to extend Medicaid coverage to people like her in two years. So she expects to remain uninsured, struggling to pay for her blood pressure medicine. ‘You fall through the cracks and there’s nothing you can do about it,’ said the 52-year-old home health aide. ‘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 insurance program. That’s especially true in states where conservative governors say they’ll reject the Medicaid expansion under Obama’s health law…”
• Frequent Medicaid patient doctor visits no longer allowed, By Liz Freeman, August 13, 2012, Naples Daily News: “Medicaid patients with chronic health problems, be prepared: Frequent doctor visits are no longer allowed. Hospitals also are taking new hits from the state Medicaid program for the poor and disabled. Payments for ‘frequent flier’ patients to emergency room stops with the seventh visit in one year. The Florida Legislature approved the caps this past spring. The state Agency for Healthcare Administration recently notified hospitals and doctors of the changes that kicked in Aug. 1. The catch is a consumer watchdog group, Florida CHAIN, says it has asked the state for proof it has sought approval from the federal government to make the changes…”