The first debate of the 2012 Presidential Election has happened, and is done. It is very important that everyone become an informed voter, and understand exactly how each candidate stands on important issues. Here is one of two blogs that will tell you what each side’s plans are for Medicaid.
There seems to be a whole lot of misinformation being spread around about what each of the two candidates intends to do if elected, or re-elected, as President of the United States. This is the Insurance Blog, so this time I am going to focus on Medicaid. Here is what Romney/Ryan plan to do with the Medicaid program.
Medicaid is a public, or government run, health insurance program. Part of the funding for Medicaid comes from the federal government. This can be in the form of a grant that is intended to be spent on the health care needs of a certain group of people who are low-income.
For example, some funding is earmarked for Family Planning and Pregnancy care, some is for CHIP (Children’s Health Care Program), and some is for states to expand their Medicaid programs to cover adults who are younger than age 65, who are not disabled, who are not pregnant and who do not live with dependent children. Medicaid is also funded by the government of an individual state.
There is some information on the Romney website that says what Romney/Ryan plan to do with Medicaid. They want to “Block grant Medicaid and other payments to states”. This means they want the federal funding to be given to a state in one “chunk” and allow the state to decide how much of it is spent on each portion of their Medicaid program.
Romney/Ryan also want to “Limit federal standards and requirements on both private insurance and Medicaid coverage.” No further details are given on the Romney website.
It most likely means that they want individual states to be able to decide which populations they want to cover in their Medicaid program, (and which populations to exclude). It could mean that they want states to be allowed to lower the income limitations for Medicaid eligibility in order to exclude some of the people who are currently covered.
Optimistically, it could mean that they want to allow states to use the block grant to pour more Medicaid funds into coverage of a specific group, (for example, children), while excluding funding for other groups. Or, it could mean that they want to allow states to opt-out of coverage for birth control, for mental health services, or for ABA therapy for children with autism.
It could mean allowing states to choose not to increase the reimbursement rate for doctors who see patients who are covered by Medicaid. I really wish there were more specific details about what Romney/Ryan want to do with Medicaid on the Romney website.
Image by DonkeyHotey on Flickr