Consequences of Cutting Medicaid
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-05-31/consequences-cutting-medicaid
It appears Medicare will remain a divisive issue into the 2012 election. While Republican lawmakers continue to embrace plans to overhaul the program, results of a recent special house election made it clear that task won’t be easy. Some worry Medicaid will suffer as a result of public resistance to Medicare reform. Congress recently introduced legislation that would help states cut existing eligibility for the program that serves children and the poor. But many low and middle income families rely on Medicaid to pay for long-term care. Diane and her guests talk about the consequences of cutting Medicaid.
Guests
Norman Ornstein
resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and coauthor of "The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track."
Julie Rovner
health policy correspondent for NPR, author of "Health Care Policy and Politics A-Z," and contributing editor for National Journal Daily.
Congressman Michael Burgess
Republican,Texas, 26th District
Joy Johnson Wilson
Health Policy Director and Senior Federal Affairs Counsel,
National Conference of State Legislatures
Ron Pollack
executive director of Families USA, a national non-profit organization for health care consumers.
Comments
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High # Medicaid births by girls who don't have financial wherewithal to raise kids, and don't care either. Birth will be paid for, then immunizations, dental and vision -- all by the US taxpayer, who will also subsidize their Section 8 housing and food stamps. They are entitled, after all, to entitlement program funds. Lets take more tax dollars from those nasty high income folks who actually grow the economy by creating jobs and buying from other businesses and lets give it to these girls. This has got to be our nation's domestic priority!
Yogahelps2, you're right about our need to discuss euthanasia rationally. Under single payor system, there simply won't be enough money to pay for the care everybody wants/needs. It will come as result of witholding of care for those deemed 'inappropriate' (organ transplant example given) and not an injection so as to allow policy makers to sleep better. Not to be flip or sarcastic, but forced abortion and/or sterilization by those who just can't stop getting pregnant should be considered too.
The #1 expenditure of Medicare is joint replacement. Medicare does not provide a registry of these medical devices that would guide surgeons, insurers and consumers. Medical device manufacturers provide ZERO warranty on product. The FDA is responsible for clearing these implantable devices for the marketplace but allow 510k clearance often without any human clinical trials and post-market scrutiny. Patients are nominally represented in the FDA Orthopedic Medical Devices advisory panel by a Consumer Representative (term 2/3/05-8/31/13) and an unnamed Patient Rep who is divulged 48 hours AFTER the meeting. Neither is allowed to vote(unlike pharmaceuticals!). Furthermore, in 2/2008 the Supreme Court in Riegel v Medtronic gave medical device manufacturers pre-emption from state courts. Orthopedic surgeons' PAC gave more in the election than the AMA. They earn an average of $400k and are 96% male. Please look at this. Implanted joint replacement failure is medical and legal purgatory for patients and their families. The IOM is to make a statement on implanted medical device clearance in the next several weeks. The consumer voice has been restricted. Contact patient advocate Regina Holliday. reggieart123@yahoo.com Walking Gallery June 7, 2011 700 Second St NE Washington DC. Thanks!
Of course there would be the fallback negative distortions of a diverse underserved population being thrown around.
Sure people should have children responsibly, just as companies, governors, and voters should behave responsibly.
As said, other countries have better, less expensive health care without anything remotely like "Dyeth Panelz!" Insurance companies decide fates anyway except basely for profit. And call Medicaid/Medicare entitlements, but they're paid by taxes, sales too.
I'm not demonizing the rich categorically (there are philanthropists and plenty who pay their taxes, invest), but any wealth distribution study of the past several decades speaks for itself - the GDP's a "funnel up" - that's not growth, or jobs, or fair to Americans...
Regarding Long-term care:
1. Long-term care insurance was not even mentioned.
2. Medicare was portrayed as a savior for the middle class. The elderly generally have to exhaust their entire savings prior to Medicare kicking in. My family believes in always spending within your means and passing on a nest egg to future generations to live a responsible life by having the means to pay for college, a home, and retirement while building back up that same nest egg for the next generation. Medicaid requires that the nest egg be exhausted and future generations live a life of debt...this is the opposite of how Medicaid was described. Families with elderly patients that have a nest egg are still left with no publicly funded option. Long-term care insurance is the only option other than having a family member take care of the patient.
3. How did every guest so easily overlook the fact that spending $75,000/year so that a patient can continue to live an often miserable life is the biggest trajegy of all. Go to a retirement home with many medicaid patients...it is depressing. It looks like an institution where people are kept alive for little reason other than to suck cash out of the government...the poor quality of life and care is shocking.
As a huge NPR fan, I don't understand why the Diane Rehm show insists on being so drastically bias toward the Liberal perspective and intentionally ignores the valid points of the opposite perspective. It hurts my opinion of NPR.
Our government is failing us, as are our organs. Why? Wrong recipe. The US economy requires growth. Obesity is growth. Heart disease is growth( of clogging substances called atherosclerosis)cancer is growth(of mutant cells)diabetes is growth(of antibodies that attack the pancreas from foreign substances in milk protein, www.drmcdougall.com). Healthy , organic real food makes no money for animal agribusiness and the profits of the international corporations built from animals grown as commodities. To grow diseases, ideologies must be grown and watered. What do we see on TV? Kids ALWAYS eating meat, dairy, junk....
The so called health reporters share in the responsibility to grow information that revels the truth. That truth never sees the light of day. Why? Truth reveals that diet IS, was, always will be the key to curing and reversing disease. Since health care is NEVER discussed from the vantage point of what causes disease. meat, dairy, "rich" western commodity processed food, people continue to hear a biased conversation shaped by the power of insurance, "farm" aceutical giants, and other powerful influences that profit from America's economic foundation, animal agribusiness.
A deadly double edged sword is now piercing us, ll the while billions are being made in the growing "health care" sector.
The nutritional retardation in the medical field gives one pause, since it IS nutrition and environmental factors(thank the FDA for approving thousands of carcinogens that affect DNA)that affect disease.
When the conversation focuses on the use of real medicine, FOOD, vegan food, and the corruption that promotes everything but, perhaps Medicade, medicare and health care will get some relief from over use due to the needless, preventable diseases that need never exist if we learned to eat plant strong nutrition.
The cancer in politics has become the cancer in our bodies.
Liberal perspective!!!!!!!!I'm as liberal as anyone and all I hear is a biased, industry driven discussion about health care that has NOTHING to do with why SO many people are plagued by diseases that need NEVER exist.
A liberal discussion( one based on reality, that our diseases are self-induced) would include the voices of medical professionals who understand the politics of food, disease, and the shallow focus on insurance, crisis management, and how to get the government to fix our organs. How bout people LEARN for themselves, that most diseases NEED NEVER HAPPEN and are a consequence of eating a "rich" fat laden diet.
www.forksoverknives.com
www.processedpeople.com
There is NOTHING liberal about NPR from my left wing bleeding heart, tree hugging viewpoint. The influence IS more from corporations that profit from disease and the industrial foods that are behind them.
Ireton, long term care insurance, which clearly should have been a topic of discussion, while never brought up by Ms Rehm or any of the panelists, was finally offered up by TX state Rep Dr Burgess 47 minutes into the show, only to be seemingly harshly dismissed by Ms Rehm as irrelevant due to what she was suggesting to be insufficient coverage for the high water mark cost being batted around. The notion of people taking responsibility for themselves and their families just doesn't fit this program's socialist agenda under which all care for all people should simply be a right.
If from conception forward, our bodies were not contaminated with substances that inflame, attack, or weaken it, we'd NOT need joint replacements!
Do horses ever require them? How about other mammals?
No, joint replacement is inherently human, designed by those who make killing off our nutritional retardation.
PLEASE Ms Rehm, interview Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. John McDougall, Dr. Milton Mills, Dr. Gabriel Cousens, Dr. Max Gerson's daughter, Charolette Gerson, Brenda Davis,Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn Jr., Dr. T. Colin Campbell, ALL using a plant strong diet, as the prescription for reversing, and curing our self induced diseases.