JustCare

Category: Medicaid

  • Low-income adults value Medicaid

    Low-income adults value Medicaid

    A recent survey of low-income adults reveals that low-income adults value Medicaid. They view Medicaid as health insurance coverage that is as good or better than private insurance in “quality and affordability.” Medicaid was rated less good in terms of “access to doctors and being treated with respect.”  The overwhelming majority, 80 percent, favor Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. Unfortunately, only one-third said that they were aware of their states’ plans to expand Medicaid in 2014.  The vast majority were misinformed.  Survey respondents were from Kentucky, Arkansas and Texas.

    The ACA provides substantial federal money to states that wish to expand Medicaid to cover a broader swath of low-income adults, people with incomes under 138 percent of poverty.  To date, as a result of  health care reform, 26 states and the District of Columbia have undertaken Medicaid expansion and eight million more adults are enrolled in Medicaid.Nearly 3,000 people between the ages of 19 and 64 were included in the study sample.

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    Almost 20 percent of residents are uninsured in states that have not expanded Medicaid

  • Medicaid, Medicare and long-term care

    Medicaid, Medicare and long-term care

    Long-term care can cost a lot.  Medicare sometimes picks up a small piece of the cost.  Medicaid can cover a lot of the cost.  Paying out-of-pocket for long-term care tends to be extremely expensive. Here are some key facts on Medicaid, Medicare and long-term care:
    • Fact: Medicaid covers about two-thirds of all long-term care spending, about $131 billion in 2011.  87% of Medicaid spending on older adults is for long-term care.  One in three older adults with Medicaid receive long-term care through Medicaid.
    • Fact: 43% of people with Medicaid needing long-term care are under the age of 65.
    • Fact: Medicare does not cover long-term custodial care, nor does standard health insurance.  Medicare contributed 21% to long-term care in 2011, because it covers skilled nursing care and skilled therapy services for a limited time post-hospitalization.

    Here’s more from Just Care on aging in place and long-term care services and supports:


    Click here     to learn more about long-term services and supports from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and here to learn more about long-term care from JAMA.

    Photo Credit: RWJF
  • Evidence suggests cutting Medicare will hurt kids

    Evidence suggests cutting Medicare will hurt kids

    Benefits to kids tend to go hand in hand with benefits to older adults.  And, evidence suggests that cutting Medicare will hurt kids. If you analyze the data, countries that spend a greater share of their income benefiting older adults, also spend a greater share of their income benefiting kids, report Shawn Fremstad and Dean Baker, Center for Economic Policy and Research.  The evidence further suggests that cutting Medicare will not mean more money for kids. Congress has never made financial trade-offs between older adults and kids.
    • Fact: Jonathan Bradshaw and Emese Mayhew report that “Nations make choices about the level of resources they commit to children and the elderly, and the countries that are most generous to children also tend to be most generous to the elderly.”
    • Fact: The U.S., for the most part, spends less than other OECD countries on retirement benefits. Indeed, they are relatively moderate, says Fremstad, relying on data from Jonathan Bradshaw and Emese Mayhew.
    • Fact: There is no evident tradeoff between government benefits to kids and benefits to older adults, according to sociologist David Brady. In Rich Democracies, Poor People: How Politics Explains Poverty, Brady looks at poverty data in 18 OECD countries to show that in countries with high poverty rates among elderly, there are high poverty rates among kids and vice versa.
    • Fact: As the U.S. has created programs for older adults, such as Medicare, we have also created programs for the young, such as Head Start. And, funding has increased at the national, state and local levels for both older Americans and the young, according to Baker.

    Fremstad and Baker believe that the economic security of kids in America, both today and in the future, depends in good part on their parents’ and grandparents’ economic security, because families take care of one another across the generations.  If we give their parents and grandparents greater security, working-class kids will be better off as well.

    To learn more about how countries that spend more on seniors also spend more on children from the Center for Economic and Policy Rights (CEPR), click here.  CEPR also has this post, explaining that our parents are not stealing from our kids.  And, yet another showing the fallacy of the argument that spending on older adults in any takes money from kids.

  • With Affordable Care Act, more Latinos insured

    With Affordable Care Act, more Latinos insured

    A new report from the Commonwealth Fund reveals that thanks to the Affordable Care Act, many more Latinos are insured.

    Overall, there has been a 13 point increase in the Latino population with health insurance since last year.  As of a few months ago, 23 percent of the Latino population is uninsured as compared with last year when 36 percent of the Latino population was uninsured.

    Young Latinos between the ages of 19 and 34 have seen the greatest drop—20 points–in their uninsured rate.  Between July and September 2013, 43 percent of the Latino population between 19 and 34 was uninsured.  Nine months later, between April and June 2014, 23 percent of the Latino young adult population was uninsured.

    States that have expanded Medicaid coverage have cut by half the percentage of uninsured Latinos from 35 percent to 17 percent.  States that have not expanded Medicaid coverage still have 33 percent of their Latino population uninsured.

    For decades, Latinos had the highest uninsured rate in America.

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  • If your income is low and you need health insurance, the state you live in matters

    If your income is low and you need health insurance, the state you live in matters

    A recent report by the Kaiser Family Foundation illustrates just how important it can be for people with low incomes who need health insurance to live in a state that has expanded eligibility for Medicaid. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, 26 states and the District of Columbia now allow anyone with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level ($27,000 for a family of three) to enroll in Medicaid.  Before 2014, states had restricted Medicaid eligibility to different categories of individuals, primarily children, older adults, people with disabilities; adults without dependent children generally could not qualify for Medicaid.

    Twenty-four states have chosen not to expand eligibility for Medicaid. As a result, almost five million uninsured adults have too high an income to qualify for Medicaid, even though their income is below the federal poverty level, and too low an income to qualify for a subsidy in their state’s health insurance exchange.  For example, to qualify for Medicaid as an adult in Alabama, your income cannot be more than 16 percent of the federal poverty level, $3,221.  In Indiana and Missouri, your income cannot be more than 24 percent of FPL, about $4,600.

    To learn which states have not expanded eligibility for Medicaid, click here.