States working to cut Medicaid Deficit

Many states are currently in a bind, as the US Government has cut funding, which will hit close to US homes in the forms of health care, education, public safety and social services. This has resulted in 30 states cutting their spending to avoid big deficit gaps.

The Medicaid provision, which would extend assistance first granted in last year’s stimulus package, was considered such a sure bet by many governors and legislative leaders that they prematurely included the money in their budgeting. But under pressure from conservative Democrats to rein in deficit spending, House leaders in late May eliminated $24 billion in aid to states from a tax and jobs bill that was approved and forwarded to the Senate.

Read the full article here.

What stimulus package could mean for health care

With the House and the Senate working this week with the stimulus bill proposed by Barack Obama, many changes could come about for health care in the United States. One of the biggest is that newly unemployed individuals would be eligible for Medicaid.

Other incentives proposed with the $117 billion proposed for health care spending:

•$87 billion dollars to help states pay the costs of Medicaid, which provides medical care for the poor and disabled.

•$29 billion to help the unemployed pay for private insurance.

•$20 billion to implement new healthcare technologies, such as electronic medical records, aimed at improving care and cutting costs.

For more on the recent proposal, read the article here at the Christian Science Monitor.

More Works to Face Higher Healthcare Costs in '09

From the LATimes.com,

A growing number of workers in 2009 will pay more for health benefits -- and in some cases receive less coverage -- as their employers grapple with the financial fallout of rising medical expenses and diminished revenue and profits, recent surveys of human resource officials show.The Corporate Executive Board found in its survey that a quarter of officials from 350 large corporations said they had increased deductibles an average of 9% in 2008. But 30% of the employers said they expected to raise deductibles an average of 14% in 2009. Mercer, a global benefits consulting firm, surveyed nearly 2,000 large corporations in a representative poll and found that 44% planned to increase employee-paid portion of premiums in 2009, compared with 40% in 2008.

Three huge reasons why this is happening:

1. Employers are curbing their spending on coverage
2. More people are without health benefits
3. Most cannot afford COBRA


What others can you add to the list?

Healthcare Cuts Before Obama

At a time when the economy is sinking, jobs are diminishing and the poor are being locked out of health care that they so desperately need--many struggling states are cutting health care. With rising costs and corrupt state governments, these states are in a financial firestorm that has left the neediest individuals and families without the health care that they so desperately need. Look at this list from LATimes.com:

Illinois' senior citizens are facing the traumatic prospect of being moved from nursing homes teetering on the edge of bankruptcy as the homes wait for months to be paid by the floundering state government.

South Carolina has cut treatment for low-income women under 40 with breast or cervical cancer and stopped providing nutritional supplements for people with kidney failure.

In southern Nevada, cancer patients without health coverage no longer have a place to get chemotherapy after the state's largest public hospital stopped providing outpatient oncology services.

Will the Obama administration be able to save these state's health care systems with new initiatives? How can this situation be remedied?