Thursday, January 11, 2018

Medicaid Work Requirements

Since I see Medicaid as just a different form of welfare, I agree that work requirements should be in place. Thoughts?


VOX Medicaid Work Requirements
CNN Money Work Requirements
KHN Work Requirements
Guidance Document

16 comments:

Sean said...

Bad idea. All this is going to do is separate people from needed health care, which in turn will make it more difficult for them to get and hold a job. Let them get health care, and keep the work requirements on other welfare programs.

Sean said...

Meanwhile, we're almost a year into this administration and as of this point the President has failed to nominate someone to fill any of these positions:

* ambassadors to South Korea, Egypt, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey
* director of the Census
* director of the ATF
* commissioner of Social Security Administration
* director of the IRS
* administrators of the Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transit Administration or National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
* directors of the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the U.S. Geological Survey
* assistant secretaries of state for African affairs; Near Eastern affairs; South Asian affairs; Western Hemisphere affairs; intelligence and research; political-military affairs; conflict and stabilization operations; democracy, human rights and labor; international narcotics and law enforcement; population, refugees and migration; energy resources; oceans and international, environmental and scientific affairs

jerrye92002 said...

Failed to nominate? Or failed to have confirmed because of Democrat obstruction?

Sean said...

Failed to nominate, in the above cases. There are an additional 100 or so that have not been confirmed.

BUT, Democrats have no power to obstruct nominees for any non-judicial position, because they cannot be filibustered, so any Senate delays fall squarely in McConnell's lap.

jerrye92002 said...

It is obvious that Trump is, to some degree, using his power to nominate (or not) as a tool to reduce the federal bureaucracy. Hard to know whether that is what is happening in some or all of the jobs you mention.

As for the topic at hand, it strikes me as odd that we would want "work requirements" for people that are supposedly sick, but I guess we must keep in mind we might deprive them of medical INSURANCE, not medical CARE, the hidden truth in all government health care schemes. And since Medicaid is a part of the means-tested welfare system, it only makes sense that all aspects of it carry the same, very sensible work requirement.

John said...

Jerry,
People on Medicaid are not necessarily sick... I mean I have health insurance and am overall very healthy and working.

jerrye92002 said...

Isn't that what I said? So what is the objection to a work requirement?

John said...

Do you read what you write? :-)

"it strikes me as odd that we would want "work requirements" for people that are supposedly sick"

jerrye92002 said...

And it strikes you as perfectly reasonable to ask sick people to work? Do YOU read what I write?

John said...

I guess I don't think of sick people when I think of Medicaid...

jerrye92002 said...

That's what I said, I thought. If Medicaid isn't for sick people, then what is it for? If we paid for people's medical CARE we could spend a lot less. A work requirement reduces the overall cost to the taxpayers, but it is still largely a waste.

John said...

It is for in case those people get sick.

Hopefully applying a work requirement stick helps to move some of the folks into the work force where they may get company provide insurance.

jerrye92002 said...

Again, the cost of Medicaid insurance (to the taxpayer), especially for those young and healthy enough to work, is MUCH higher than simply providing them health CARE thru public hospitals, charity hospitals, emergency rooms. And if we find them jobs, as you say, they can afford their own.

I don't know in general, but Mississippi was well advanced in this area. They had local prisons, in many towns, for "redeemable" felons-- dormitories with bars. Every prisoner was found a job in the community. They went to the job every day and returned to the dorm each night. They paid room and board and kept the rest. When they were released, they had a job and enough saved to get an apartment. And if they failed to return any night, "Satan's hounds" were set against them. They also learned a trade, got some education, got off drugs. So why can't we do something like that with poor folk?

John said...

Jerry,
We will need a source for this silly claim.

"the cost of Medicaid insurance (to the taxpayer), especially for those young and healthy enough to work, is MUCH higher than simply providing them health CARE thru public hospitals, charity hospitals, emergency rooms"

Since Medicaid only pays when a bill occurs and they manage allowable amounts.

Sean said...

The idea that healthy, able-bodied people are choosing not to work because they are on a program that only provides them any benefit when they see a doctor seems kind of crazy and it's not supported by any evidence.

John said...

I don't know, it seems to me that fear is a great motivator...

And if they are assured good healthcare I assume that reduces their level of fear.

I keep getting this sense that many "artists" feel safer pursuing their poorly paid dreams thanks to the benefits paid for by tax payers.

I don't think their is any one cause for people choosing not to work. It seems to me that there are many. As Laurie and I are discussing here.