Bad news, then good news, and bad news again on medicaid expansion in Pennsylvania.
House Republicans followed through Monday on their threat to kill a provision written by the state Senate to require Gov. Tom Corbett to seek federal approval for an expansion of Medicaid eligibility to provide taxpayer-paid health care to hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians.
This from an article on the back and forth state of medicaid expansion in PA.
As part of health care reform (Obamacare), the federal government was going to pay to expand medicaid. But since this is a joint program between the federal and state governments, the states need to be willing participants. Seems an inexpensive way for the states to help their poorer residents. The federal government pays 100 percent for the first three years, starting next year, and 90 percent after that.
But 21 states governed by Republicans refused this deal. There are 6 states that haven’t decided yet and Pennsylvania is one of them.
I live in Pennsylvania so I’ve been paying attention to the see-saw here. First our Republican governor says NO. Then the state Senate says YES . Then the state House says No (see the quote above).
So I don’t know what will happen but I suspect the needy in Pennsylvania will be the losers.
Jack…re Pa Medicaid debacle…the poor, elderly and those without healtcare are losers for sure…so are all the taxpayers in Pa and America for that matter. No one has done much to seriously reduce the cost of health care…some ideas….cap civil litigation awards, where necessary, make doctors and hospitals advertise their costs for basic and supplementary services, advertise the ability to get solid , low cost surgery and care overseas, etc.
Has it it low cost in Pa if the Fed Gov pays…that’s still you and I? And in time the state pays 90%…yeah…90% of what? Could be tens to hundreds of millions they may not have.
We need better ideas…shifting the cost burdens temporarily is not the answer.
Hi Bill,
While I agree that we need to bring health care costs down, we do have to be careful that we don’t create other problems in doing so. For example if we cap litigation awards, we could limit a real need. Say if someone really need intensive lifetime care for an injury due to a clear negligence. But there may be better ways of identifying and compensating those cases. And litigation is clearly inappropriate if there is no real negligence but still a real need either just by bad luck or a judgement call in case that could have gone either way.
So I think you are right and litigation is not the answer. Maybe some sort of no fault system might be more appropriate. I don’t know how that would work but I think the idea is worth consideration. I doubt we can find a perfect solution but I bet we can find something better than litigation.
I agree too that hospital and doctor costs need to be more transparent.
I’ll have do more reading on this. My understanding was the Feds paid all and eventually 90% (so the state is stuck with 10% in the long-term). But whether or not the state participates the residents still pay the tax for medicaid expansion in the other states.