Los Angeles Times: Healing Medi-Cal: Let California Have Medi-Cal

Source:FreeState Now

A lot of states are swamped in deficit and debt thanks to high unemployment. With a lot less people working and paying taxes as we had four years ago. And instead of working and paying taxes, they are instead consuming more public services. Paid for by less tax revenue, California being a perfect example of this. Medicaid was already set up in the 1960s as an unfunded mandate that has to come out of general revenue. 

Unfunded mandates makes it even harder to pay for Medicaid. And when we have less people working and more poor people in the country Medicaid or Medi-Cal as its called in California becomes even harder to pay for, especially with the Federal Government Continuing to pass down regulations without the funds to pay for them. The way to fix Medicaid not just for California, but every other state, there are a few of ways.  

One let each State have Medicaid to run. Each State would have its own version of Medicaid. Which would help make Medicaid self-financed, that would be paid for by its consumers and their employees. Unemployed workers would get a tax credit provided by the Federal Government to cover their health care costs and employers would get a tax credit from the Feds to cover their Medicaid costs. 

Two instead of even having the states run Medicaid, convert each Medicaid into a semi-private non-profit self-financed health insurer that provides health insurance for low-income people.  And let the States, Feds and locals regulate these health insurers instead. 

Medicaid wasn’t set up to be efficient or cost-effective. But to provide health insurance for people who couldn’t get it any other way. Which it has done for the most part, but it needs to be reformed. To make it cost-effective, especially when budgets are tight for everyone. 

Washington Times: David Keene: A Better Way to Help the Dangerously Mentally Ill

Washington Times: Opinion: David Keene: A Better Way to Help the Dangerously Mentally Ill

This may be the first post on The New Democrat about an article in the Washington Times.  I'm not sure.  The Times is one of two small right-wing newspapers in Washington, D.C.  They are small compared with the progressive Washington Post, one of the most important big city news papers in the country, if not the most important.  The Washington Times, even with their supposed reporting, sounds, a lot of times, like the FOX News of print, a partisan political operation trying to pass themselves off as a news organization but really just repeating stuff from Republican or Tea Party sources and reporting things that really aren't news.

But today, David Keene writes what could be called a "compassionate conservative" piece about mental health care in America and what is wrong with it.  We lock up people who otherwise would be classified as mental patients who should be institutionalized but, since they were convicted of committing felonies, we put them in prison.  The prison staff isolates them in indefinite solitary confinement so they can't hurt anyone.  This is understandable, from the staff's viewpoint but it  treats the symptoms instead of addressing the underlying problems that cause these people to act out in the first place.

We have an underfunded mental health care system in America that results in a lot of damage to society, including the loss of innocent lives.  We have mental patients who are on the street when they should be institutionalized for their own good and for the good of society, not in prison but in real mental hospitals or, at the very least, in outpatient care with medication and regular appointments with  caregivers.  This is self-inflicted wound.  We've shot ourselves in the feet.

We have the resources in this country to fully-fund mental health care.   We should've done that as part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act.  Even some Congressional Republicans who, at the time, were in the minority in the House and Senate believed that we should have addressed this problem.  Even with all of the  shootings, post Gabby Gifford in Tucson, we have failed to act and, as a result, our country is still in danger of more shootings by mentally disturbed people who have no business being in possession of firearms.

I'm in favor of background checks to make sure that anyone attempting to buy a firearm does not have a mental health or criminal record but that, alone, won't solve the problem because as long as there are mental patients on the streets with access to firearms, either through the legal or black markets, we will remain at risk of further gun violence in this country.

Along with background checks on gun purchases we need to make mental health care part of health insurance for both private and public insurers.  People in mental hospitals should be eligible for public assistance while they are institutionalized to cover costs that their health insurer doesn't cover.  We need to make sure that, in the future, mental patients are not released because their hospital can no longer afford to treat them.

The Fiscal Times: Eric Pianin- The Unintended Consequences of Expanding Medicaid

Source: The Fiscal Times-

Source:The Fiscal Times

I have a hard time believing that people on Medicaid would end up going to the emergency room more often now that they have health insurance especially for conditions that aren’t emergencies. As this article from The Fiscal Times suggests. And besides even if that is the case why wouldn’t these ER’s just turn these people away or tell them to make an appointment with one of their doctors. And come back tomorrow and if ER’s aren’t allowed to do that, then they should be allowed to.

This whole debate about Medicaid is about the fact that we do not finance it very well. And we do not finance it very well because we do not have a direct revenue source for it. Unlike Medicare and rely on general tax revenue from the Feds and states to pick up the tabs for it. And until recently before the Affordable Care Act the Feds hadn’t been paying their fair share for Medicaid. A public health insurance program that covers low-income Americans. And the Feds haven’t been paying their share under law because of the high costs of Medicaid. But you give Medicaid a direct revenue source and allow each state to run their own Medicaid program and you fix financial problems of it and no longer have states debating whether they afford to expand their Medicaid or not.

The way to fund Medicaid would be to have a payroll tax on it that would be paid for by employers. And workers to not only cover their employees Medicaid insurance, but for unemployed workers as well, or increase what people get on Unemployment and Welfare Insurance to pay for Medicaid as well. And we could also either give our low-income workers and expanded Earned Income Tax Credit to pay for this. Or increase the minimum wage substantially to cover it as well with a break for small employers. And we wouldn’t have to worry about Medicaid financing in the future again.
RW Johnson: Medicaid Expansion Under The Affordable Care Act

The Fiscal Times: Opinion: Eric Planin: The Unintended Consequence of Expanding Medicaid: How to Affordably Finance Medicaid

The Unintended Consequence of Expanding Medicaid | The Fiscal Times


I have a hard time believing that people on Medicaid would end up going to the emergency room more often. Now that they have health insurance especially for conditions that aren't emergencies. As this article from The Fiscal Times suggests and besides even if that is the case. Why wouldn't these ER's just turn these people away or tell them to make an appointment with one of their doctors. And come back tomorrow and if ER's aren't allowed to do that, than they should be allowed to.

This whole debate about Medicaid is about the fact that we do not finance it very well. And we do not finance it very well because we do not have a direct revenue source for it. Unlike Medicare and rely on general tax revenue from the Feds and states to pick up the tabs for it. And until recently before the Affordable Care Act the Feds hadn't been paying their fair share for Medicaid. A public health insurance program that covers low-income Americans. And the Feds haven't been paying their share under law because of the high costs of Medicaid. But you give Medicaid a direct revenue source and allow each state to run their own Medicaid program and you fix financial problems of it. And no longer have states debating whether they afford to expand their Medicaid or not.

The way to fund Medicaid would be to have a payroll tax on it that would be paid for by employers. And workers to not only cover their employees Medicaid insurance but for unemployed workers as well. Or increase what people get on Unemployment and Welfare Insurance to pay for Medicaid as well. And we could also either give our low-income workers and expanded Earned Income Tax Credit to pay for. This or increase the minimum wage substantially to cover it as well with a break for small employers. And we wouldn't have to worry about Medicaid financing in the future again.