Trump Admin May Let States Impose Medicaid Work Requirements

[DonViejo]

Last edited Wed Mar 15, 2017, 12:07 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: Talking Points Memo


By CAITLIN MACNEAL Published MARCH 15, 2017, 10:32 AM EDT

The Trump administration is considering giving states more flexibility in implementing Medicaid, such as allowing states to create work requirements for residents benefitting from that program, according to the [link:https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-may-let-states-put-new-requirements-on-medicaid-recipients-1489546011Wall Street Journal].

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma sent a letter to governors on Tuesday saying that they would work with states on waivers allowing them to make changes to Medicaid implementation, according to the report. The Journal also reported that Price was set to discuss the waivers with governors Tuesday evening.

The letter from Price and Verma did not spell out exactly what program changes would be allowed through the waivers, but signaled that the Trump administration may approve waivers imposing work requirements on some Medicaid recipients, per the Wall Street Journal.

Through waivers, states could narrow eligibility for Medicaid by imposing work requirements and/or moving the bar for what incomes qualify for the program. States could also require Medicaid recipients to pay premiums or co-pays for emergency room visits.

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/medicaid-work-requirements-possible-price

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Woman dies from seizure 6 months after government cut Medicaid benefits and sent her back to work

TRAVIS GETTYS
15 MAR 2017 AT 11:56 ET

An eastern Tennessee woman died from an epileptic seizure less than six months after her government benefits stopped paying for medication.

Amy Schnelle, a former factory worker, received disability benefits for several years and had been seizure-free since 2015 thanks to powerful drugs paid for by her Medicaid coverage, reported WATE-TV.

But the Social Security Administration sent the 31-year-old Schnelle a notice in September that she was healthy enough to go back to work, but she was unable to afford the $1,200 monthly costs for the drugs she needed to avoid life-threatening seizures.

“I bite my tongue,” Schnelle told WATE in September. “There were times where I bumped my head. It would take me hours to come back.”

more
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/woman-dies-from-seizure-6-months-after-government-cut-medicaid-benefits-and-sent-her-back-to-work/

[TBA]

1. Tell that to my son

who is blind, and has Type 1 Diabetes, Epilepsy, and severe facial disfigurement due to a gun shot wound.

Get out and work you slacker! I'm sure somebody will hire you!

For the record, he has actually tried. He would like to work but his chances are slim to none. So he volunteers for a nonprofit. They love him.

[Hortensis]

16. They never mean people like your son, so conveniently

always out of mind. Many disabilities are not obvious to the callous glance, physical but also mental disorders, which often render those people extremely unlikable. I wish I thought they'd at least relax the vagrancy laws against homeless people to go along with this, but of course they will not.

Nice to hear your son is able to contribute and be appreciated, and belongs.

[orangecrush]

2. I will go to work

At republicans town halls.

[jrthin]

3. These people are evil. They

Are devoid of anything resembling human beings. The very nature of being on medicare is that one is ill.

[RKP5637]

9. They are an evil pox on earth destroying anything they come in contact with. Seriously, they

are extremely disturbed individuals and often their behavior is extremely weird. The just resemble being human, but underneath they are as dangerous as hell.

[enough]

12. I've always used that word with reluctance. Now more and more, EVIL

is the only word that seems to explain it.

[Hortensis]

19. Medicaid. Which, btw, also pays long-term elder care.

Just wait until Medicaid cuts disguised as block grants--administered by red states especially--affect the ability to move mom or grandma to an institution after her stroke. Think you can't afford to quit your job to take care of her yourself? Well, perhaps you could get a swing shift job, when someone else will be home to take over. No someone else? Well, maybe the siblings who were never much help before will step up finally. But don't hold your breath.

Red state conservative voters will be among the worst hit, absolutely. Even those who have adequate resources will not be happy to have a hospital bed in their dining room and trade most of their freedom, free time, and discretionary income for 24/7 caretaking.

[SharonAnn]

32. Medicaid and Medicare are huge benefits for younger people.

Before those, families had to provide care for their elder relatives either at home or by paying huge amounts to care facilities.

Think about it. With average nursing home costs of $6k a month ($72k a year), families would be bankrupt.

[Hortensis]

33. Yes. And $6-7K per month would be $150K+ over 2 years,

close to a half million over 6. Costs would have to come down, but so would quality of care. A

Anti-tax and government extremists intend to destroy these cost-sharing programs completely. That is the goal of those like Ryan and the Kochs. Not saying they'll succeed, but!

If they could, to say that our whole idea of how lives should be lived, the role of work, gender roles, family organization, locations of living, so that families could actually care for each other at home would require major societal changes would be to understate it tremendously.

In most cases, women would be the ones to stay home. I'm sure this is not incidental to what's happening, including the alliance between anti-tax/anti-regulation extremists and Christian reconstructionists. And let's not forget, with immigration limited, plenty of "American people" would not only be caring for their own at home but also the labor pool for jobs in care homes at "free market" wages.

Limiting healthcare to what can actually be paid for individually would also strongly correlate life span with individual financial resources. For various reasons, that's not such a bad thing to either group. They both feel that worthy people are able to care for themselves--worthiness, both secularly and religiously, proven by the fact that they can.

We'd say a big no to this long before it came to all this, of course. They must be perfectly aware of that...

[DeminPennswoods]

38. 6k? Try 10k

Assisted living is in the 4-6k/mo range. Nursing home care is 9-10k/mo.

[mountain grammy]

4. Now these guys are really motherfuckers!

Nearly everyone I know who gets a Medicaid DOES WORK! If they don't, it's because they're physically unable..

[Stonepounder]

8. I can just see them telling an Alzheimer's patient in a nursing home to

"Get out an work you lazy so-and-so".

[stopbush]

5. Medicaid has an income threshold - if you earn too much $, you don't

qualify for Medicaid. I expect the Rs to set work requirements that have the effect of pushing people off the program because they're now earning too much.

[dalton99a]

6. Get those slackers out of their wheelchairs and nursing homes

[mpcamb]

17. Hey! They can take all those swell jobs trump's gonna bring us... er, ...whenever.

[dalton99a]

18. "Great jobs, fantastic jobs"

[Cryptoad]

23. Indentured Servitude

back at last!

[Javaman]

7. just another example of our psychopath president. nt

[uppityperson]

10. You can't find living wage job so go on medicaid, it requires you to get a living wage job?

[yallerdawg]

11. This line of attack on the working poor -

the working people who can least afford our insane healthcare costs - is another stark contrast for those voters and non-voters who think there is no difference between the two dominant political parties in America!

Our system of government makes change difficult, to offset the vagaries of a "majority populist whim" such as we are seeing now.

"Difficult" does not mean the two parties want the same things.

It means 'we the people' have to really want what we elect them to do.

So far, we aren't letting them get away with this shit!

[Blanks]

13. It's a entrepreneur killer...

If you are looking to smart a small business, say installing solar panels, or grazing a few animals, and you've found a niche in the local economy that you can exploit, but can't afford health insurance (at least initially).

If you do that and make $15,000/year, live in a house that you own free and clear, own your transportation outright, don't get sick or you will lose it all without Medicaid expansion.

This is why republicans don't like Medicaid expansion, sure they say it's because of freeloaders, but the real threat is that it keeps people working in low paying jobs.

[GoCubsGo]

14. Most of them already are working, you imbeciles.

The majority of the remainder are disabled. I hope the whole lot of these sub-humans find themselves in soul-crushing poverty, and sooner, rather than later.

[Cryptoad]

22. Maybe while they are in the hospital......

they could mop floors and clean toilets? Takes more than a regular run of mill Dumbass to come up with shit like this!

[WinkyDink]

15. Oh, my 74-year-old glaucoma-bedevilled Aunt would be right there!

[James48]

20. Arbeit Macht Frie

[Cryptoad]

21. ,,, and people wonder why i say,,,,,,

The GOP is the Largest Organized Group of Bigots and Hate Mongers in the USA!

[Demsrule86]

24. Trump is going to lose...he won't get this through.

[briv1016]

29. It sounds like they are going to do this by expanding the waiver program.

This doesn't have to go for a vote in congress so I don't see how we stop it at the federal level.

[lark]

25. Klllers!

I'm sure Repugs loved her, she died quick.

[no_hypocrisy]

26. Similar to what Giuliani intended in the Nineties when he was NYC mayor.

With this difference: he wanted welfare to be tied with community service.

What it meant: The City could fire union workers and have welfare grantees do the same work in exchange for their benefits.

[Doreen]

27. I knew they were going to start going after people like me.

You can not tell I have a disability by looking at me and talking to me for awhile. I however even after getting new knees I am physically disabled. I have arthritis throughout my body. I have injuries from my accident which get re injured very easily. I have bad balance. I was born with fetal alcohol syndrome which got worse from my accident and I have many problems on the mental side. I have a feeling they will try to kick me off of everything that I get by telling me I should be working. My life is over if they do that.

[xxqqqzme]

28. So price and verma

have nominated governors and state legislators to be death panels.

[Yavin4]

30. The poor, White working classes voted for this.

Hard to feel sorry for them.

[hollowdweller]

31. Soon the GOP will be passing bills to make not working illegal.

When my state was young in the early 20th century they could throw you in jail for not having a job.

It really upsets republicans that some people aren't working and in order to further push down wages and benefits nothing better than pushing more people into working even if they have kids at home or are too sick to do it.

[not fooled]

34. Unless, of course,

you don't work because you are a parasite on society living off inherited wealth. THOSE nonworking people are A-OK!!!

[Red Mountain]

35. The poor working whites.......

....and the not so poor working whites have friends and family who they don't feel should be getting government benefits.

They resent it.

They'll say they're of the 'live and let live' frame of mind........but don't believe it for a second.

I see it.

Our punch down society has resulted in mass psychosis.

[Solly Mack]

36. "Our punch down society..."

That's a very accurate description, unfortunately.

I may borrow it, if that's OK by you?

[Solly Mack]

37. I'll never understand the cruelty.

You don't treat people like dirt. You just don't.

[standingtall]

39. Horrible idea to impose

work requirements on medicaid like they have the snap program. First off when they say no one disabled will be cut off what they really mean is no one currently receiving disability benefits. Of course there are people who are disabled and not receiving disability benefits. Such people would have to get a State form filled out by their doctors.

You would be surprised how many doctors don't like signing those things and furthermore you would be surprised how many of them screw them up.

People working with chronic illnesses who are not receiving disability better hope they never get to the point where they cannot work. On the other end of this republicans do not believe in the concept of disability to begin with. So they make it harder to get approved. Someone loses their job due to a chronic illness and needs to apply for disability they could be fucked if their doctor will not feel out the form or feel it out properly. They might even be told their medicine will make them feel better so they can get back to work,but sense medication for chronic illnesses can be expensive after their medicaid is stripped away they will not be able to get their medicine. I hate republicans.