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Gov. C. L. "Bitch"
Idaho will not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act at this time. In his state of the state address Governor C. L. “Butch” Otter said that he will not seek an expansion this year. From Otter’s speech:
As you’ll hear in a moment, we have some pretty good ideas about that kind of managed care model. But there’s a lot more work to do, and we face no immediate federal deadline. We have time to do this right, and there is broad agreement that the existing Medicaid program is broken. So I’m seeking no expansion of those benefits.
Instead, I’m asking Director Armstrong to lead an effort to flesh out a plan for changing Idaho’s system with an eye toward the potential costs, savings and economic impact. I hope to return in 2014 with specific proposals based on that work, and I encourage all Idahoans to get involved with this process.
With Otter opposing Medicaid expansion at this moment it effectively guarantees that Idaho will not take part. This move will leave thousands of lower income individuals in the state without access to health insurance coverage.
Otter is now the 10th Republican governor to reject the Medicaid expansion since the Supreme Court made it optional. While there is reason to believe some of these states may eventually come around, it is a process that could take years.
The best way to assure all low income Americans have access to health insurance would be to fully federalize Medicaid. Having state’s involved in the funding of Medicaid has always been a significant design flaw and it is long overdue to get fixed.
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Approximate translation: “If you can afford high-end insurance, then good for you. If high-end insurance is somehow unaffordable to you, however, then go ahead and die, because we really don’t give a fuck.”
I’m just here to help.
Also, too: Have these morans ever heard of “economies of scale?” Not exactly an advanced financial concept.
He’s taking advantage of a loophole intentionally written into ACA. If I had the priorities of a Republican governor in a Red state, I’d probably do the same thing.
Then again, if I were president, I wouldn’t have dumped the excrement known as ACA on the American people in the first place.
Over the past 6 months, I have learned, firsthand, about one of the most important roles that Medicaid plays in our country: paying the costs of long-term care for millions of elderly Americans. It isn’t that I didn’t know about this before, but, after having a parent suffer a stroke and then going through the process of applying for Medicaid to cover her nursing home care, I understand much better what kind of crisis we would be facing if Medicaid funding were drastically cut for these folks. The most important thing that this experience has taught me is that Medicaid is the ONLY option for millions of elderly, whether they are poor, or not, because nursing home care, on average, costs more than $400/day. This means that, even if you worked your entire career and saved, by today’s standards, a good chunk of money for retirement, you would run through it quite quickly at $400/day. This means that for many middle and even upper middle class Americans, the only option, in the event that they need long term care, is Medicaid.
HOw and why is it ever other industrialized country on the face of the planet has some kind of national health insurance????? And we got this piece of crap that Obama got passed that nobody likes and now appears to be optional to most of the states. Almost all the republican governors are opting out??? Whose friggin idea was that???
I feel a metaphor coming…….”Listen kid, you’re gonna eat these damn lima beans if I have to shove them down your throat.”
But I digress.
The American government….NOT the best government money can buy. Not by a long shot.
“The best way … would be to fully federalize Medicaid.”
Medicaid should be rolled into Medicare so that we only have one program. It would be a good first step to Medicare for All.
From what I can find, Medicaid expansion is supposed to cover people aged 19 to 65 who make less than 138% of FPL. Idaho’s current plan only provides Medicaid for those whose income is less than 22% FPL. A big step certainly.
design flaws in the bill were put there perposefully. It is a feature not a bug.
Lowering medicare age would have been simpler,better understood,cheaper.
This bill was designed as well as the post watergate political contribution reforms. we either have the stupidest politicians who dont have the chops to write a decently constructed bill or the mistakes are on purpose.
Um…it can be both, right?
http://www.doi.idaho.gov/health/individual_list.aspx
http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2009/06/pdf/health_competitiveness.pdf
In Idaho 2 health insurance corporations control 75% of the market. I wonder what their tax status is? Not good for consumer taxpayer insured?
http://www.statehealthfacts.org/profileind.jsp?rgn=14&ind=596
Idaho per-capita healthcare costs 2009: $5,658
Population 1,584,985 (2011)
Total $8.9 billion dollars?
That is what America wastes out tailpipe in 9 days driving. No servitude to monopolizers here?
In America we had free state and slave states. Now we witness how little geographic corporate monopolies are attained and the goal of gerrymandering and protecting entrenched interests is achieved along with the new American life tax. Servitude to a health insurance corporation, for life, because you exist. Corporate servitude sucks!
Class act that Justice Roberts. One more servile corporate relationship for Americans to swallow, under fear of a coerced punitive financial tax penalty? So the Idaho Republican choose to fuck their own? Class acts everywhere…
Yes then they take any and all assets? A life’s work and accumulation of wealth if any vaporized in long term care. A sad comment on a fucked up society that thinks it the greatest thing this sliced bread? We eat our own…
Re: #7
I agree. This Medicaid expansion idea wasn’t well thought out. That’s understandable, since the purveyors had no idea the Roberts Court would issue a get-out-of-jail free card to the states. So the result is just one of so many flaws in ACA.
Any governor might reasonably be a bit cautious believing the Feds would, in the end, actually provide that 90% Fed subsidy after the three year point. Who guarantess the Feds will do so? Suppose the Feds decide not, two or three years hence. Ater the extra new beneficiaries are signed up and the Feds “need” the money for something else, what then?
Yet the expected paltry 10% funding from each state after three years — it seems so small, no? No reason for each state not to just do that.
Yet then there is no reason, either, for the Feds not to take on that pittance and the entire Medicaid committment. Swap the difference with each state for something else (I have no idea what, though).
The end problem may have more to do with current disparities in coverages between all the states, and the Feds trying to sort out that conundrum while treating all Medicaid beneficiartes equally, nationwide, if the Feds were take over that whole program.
In the meantime Texas, Idaho, others to come, will opt out of expansion and hope those hopeful beneficiaries will move to, say, blue Massachusetts for that help.
Medicare for all is the only hope.Any state that wants out is welcome to GET OUT. I’m willing to pay for a program with only 2-3% overhead. The blatant corruption of our Gov. by all insurance corps. is sad but true. When people realize this, maybe things will change. Then again, readers of FDL were warned of this years ago. It’s happening now. Now what do we do to stop it? Call our reps. in gov.? THEY DO NOT CARE! We must make them care or suffer the consequences.