Medicaid is a program that is designed to provide public health insurance to people who are poor. Since more people have become poor, due to the economy and the high unemployment rate, an increasing number of people have signed up for Medicaid. This is taking a lot out of the budgets of individual states.
Medicaid is a public, (or government run), form of health insurance. It was designed to assist people who were very low-income, and who could not afford to pay for a health insurance plan from a private insurance company. In general, people must be at least age 65 before they can qualify for Medicaid. A person who has certain kinds of disabilities can also qualify for Medicaid.
When a person tries to qualify for the Medicaid program, that person’s income is considered. The state will take into account how much that person earns, the amount in his or her bank accounts, the value of their home, vehicles, and other things that are expensive. If you make too much, or have too much, then you usually will not be approved for Medicaid.
However, a law that was signed this year changed things a bit. Retired people who applied for Medicaid would no longer have their Social Security benefits counted as part of their income.
The result of this new change meant that married couples, who were both retired, and who had an income of around $64,000 would now qualify for Medicaid. It opened up Medicaid to people who were not low-income.
The bad economy has also contributed to the amount of people who can qualify for Medicaid. If a person lost his or her job in 2009, and still has not been able to find employment, then he or she is going to have a low enough income to qualify for Medicaid. That same person would not have qualified if he or she had not become unemployed due to layoffs, budget cuts, or company closings.
Right now, according to a report from the National Association of State Budget Officers, Medicaid takes up a bigger slice of state’s budgets than does K-12 education. As of June of 2011, more than 50 million Americans enrolled in the Medicaid program.
The federal government does provide some funding for state Medicaid programs. However, states are still responsible for paying for part of it themselves. It is estimated that next year, states will be allocating 16% more of their budget into Medicaid than they did last year.
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