Health Secretary Calls for Medicaid Changes

[rodeodance]

He wants to run the elderly into the ground with medical bills. Look at the second sentence.
dar


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/02/national/02health.html?th

February 2, 2005
Health Secretary Calls for Medicaid Changes
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 - Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, called Tuesday for sweeping changes in Medicaid that would cut payments for prescription drugs and give states new power to reduce or reconfigure benefits for millions of low-income people.

In his first speech as secretary, Mr. Leavitt also said it should be more difficult for elderly people to qualify for Medicaid by transferring assets to their children.

"Medicaid must not become an inheritance protection plan," Mr. Leavitt said at a convention of health care executives here. "Right now, many older Americans take advantage of Medicaid loopholes to become eligible for Medicaid by giving away assets to their children. There is a whole industry that actually helps people shift costs to the taxpayer."

Medicaid helps pay the bills for two-thirds of the 1.6 million people in nursing homes in the United States.

[EFerrari]

1. I don't get it. The whole cabal is in bed with Big Pharma.

I really don't understand. Especially Jeb has been working this street for years. What's up with this?

(Robert Pear, the reporter, does excellent work, btw. If the story is important at the federal level, he's on it before anyone.)

[whistle]

2. What's to get, just follow the money....

<snip>

"Medicaid must not become an inheritance protection plan,". So much for the Bush ownership society. Ownership by the few, generations of crushing debt for the many.

[EFerrari]

3. That's what I mean. Aren't they shrinking their captive market?

[Judi Lynn]

5. All this from the same people who've been bitching and whining

about taxing inheritances. They even thought up the phrase they love to use, the "Death Tax."

But, as you point out, they also claim: "Medicaid must not become an inheritance protection plan,".

They are too greedy to feel shame.

[Elwood P Dowd]

4. You just watch. They're going to destroy everything.

Social Security - Gone
VA Benefits - Gone
Medicare - Gone
Education Benefits - Gone
Small Bushiness Loans - Gone
Medicaid - Gone
GI Bill - Gone
Consumer Protections From The FDA - Gone
Health Insurance - Gone
Minimum Wage - Gone

Hell, I'm just beginning. They are going to tear down everything. Welcome back to the early 1900s.

[salin]

6. Scr*w the Poor!

the motto of bushco.

[tom_paine]

7. The same story over and over: Fox advises reduction in henhouse security

Suggests that eggs should all go to the most productive members of society...the foxes.

Imperial Amerika is becoming an ugly, ugly place.

I guess we should all be overjoyed the Old America is proving so resilient and such a bounty of thievable monies that it is takling the Busheviks quite a while to steal and dismember it all.

Enjoy the twilight, night is coming.

[pookieblue]

8. okay reading these articles just makes my blood pressure go up!

<<Mr. Leavitt also said it should be more difficult for elderly people to qualify for Medicaid by transferring assets to their children.>>

The reason they do this, Mr Leavitt.. is because they have to get any help. It's not that most people want to be on medicaid get real. But they can't get private insurance because it might be too expensive OR they have that dreaded pre-existing condition.

My bet is that jerk never had a want for anything.

Let's see him after he has to choose between medicine or food. Let's see him live off cat food.

these people are pure T evil.

[Momof1]

9. In my state, if you go to a nursing home, you lose everything.

Everything is transferred to the nursing home. It is highway robbery.

They even auction off the persons furniture. Granted I realize that the nursing home then takes care of the person, and should be compensated, but a lifetime's possesions are just gone.

I can't even imagine how much pain that causes the families.