Some States Weigh Unthinkable Option: Ending Medicaid .

[Joanne98]

Huge budget shortfalls are prompting a handful of states to begin discussing a once-unthinkable scenario: dropping out of the Medicaid insurance program for the poor.

Elected and appointed officials in nearly a half-dozen states, including Washington, Texas and South Carolina, have publicly thrown out the idea. Wyoming and Nevada this year produced detailed studies of what would happen should they withdraw from the program. Wyoming found that Medicaid accounts for 63% of the state's nursing-home revenue.

The idea of abandoning Medicaid as a solution is so extreme that even proponents don't expect any state will follow through, but officials are floating the discussions because dire budgetary pressures have forced them to at least look at even the most drastic options.

Medicaid, begun in 1965 and jointly funded by federal and state dollars, is the nexus of care for the neediest Americans, and a huge payer to hospitals, nursing homes and doctors. Medicaid enrollment totaled 62 million nationwide in 2007, the most recent data available.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704444304575628603406482936.html?mod=ITP_pageone_1

[FormerDittoHead]

1. Before I clicked I said "Texas" to myself and there is it. Surprise! n/t

[RKP5637]

2. It's a failing empire more interested in waging wars and war machines. n/t

[lumberjack_jeff]

3. Washington? Thank God we defeated the income tax!

:sarcasm:

[xchrom]

5. And how revealing after that thread on Washington state

And the fact there were DEFENDERS of no state
Income tax there.

It's just irresponsible.

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. I am not easily shocked. I was shocked by that thread.

Paraphrased; "I know my poor neighbors pay more than high income people like me, but I moved here for the good deal."

[xchrom]

8. I was surprised myself at the blatant selfishness

That came through.

You'd think people would want to support the
State where they live.

[lumberjack_jeff]

9. That's what's so insidious about our unfair tax system.

Taxes ARE too high on the average working class person, but they're so carefully and intentionally hidden in our day to day lives that we can't see it and don't know what our actual share is.

We know just barely enough to know we're being exploited by our government, so we don't trust "them" to craft any non-evil solutions.

So the few well informed people with bad intentions partner with the great mass of poorly informed people to run the zoo.

[Mimosa]

4. Let the poor die. n/t

[rocktivity]

6. Consider the source.

This has been a Rupert Murdoch production.

x(
rocktivity

[bergie321]

10. Arizona already has

100 people on the transplant list were told that their lives were not worth enough to pay for the transplants that could save their lives.

2 people were already denied life-saving transplants when the organs were available for them.

Republicans finally got their death panels.