Medicaid Essay Essay

As I understood Medicaid are those personal cares services which are fundamental, non-acute services provided to facilitate recipients who require assistance with the activities of daily living to remain in their home or community, maintain their current health status and prevent, delay, or minimize deterioration of their condition. Personal care services are intended to supplement care provided by a recipient’s family or primary caregiver, not replace it. Services may be provided in the home or in setting outside the home, when necessary. The government took an active role in the economy during the 1960’s and 1970’s. In order to stimulate the economy, they ran annual budgets in a conscious attempt to spend more than they collected in revenue. Spending, inflation, and budget deficits were viewed as calculated efforts in expanding the economy. As a result this application Medicaid was created in 1965. Medicaid is a social program which provides health and medical assistance to families with low incomes and resources. Medicaid is funded by both the Federal Government and individual states. Each state is responsible for developing its own guidelines which must include: legibility, amount of services to be available, rate of payments for services, and administering its own programs. These conditions vary from state to state and are subject to change on a yearly basis. The qualifications of Medicaid recipients may differ according to each state’s guidelines Medicaid is the largest program run by the Federal Government and states that assists low income families that can not otherwise afford the high costs of health care. Medicaid pays for more services for which Medicare does not. Medicaid rules vary depend on each state. Medicaid information is accessible at your local district social services, interests or Department of Human Services Offices. In many states, Medicaid covers services and costs Medicare do not cover, including prescription drugs, diagnostic and  preventive care and eyeglasses. In some states, Medicaid charges consumers small amounts for certain services. In New England, for example the deficits are causing government directors to turn to cuts in many critical areas, including health department budgets. The states are in the point of making difficult decisions that will certainly have lethal affects on the health care system. The Congress should support short term fiscal relief to help the state through this budget crisis. Through fiscal year in 2003 Budget Ax hit Medicaid for second time, approximately every state has targeted health insurance programs for the poor, elderly and disabled to balance sever budget deficits, and two thirds of those states are on their second round of such cuts. One of the reason states are targeting Medicaid programs for cuts, is because health care programs are the most likely to be over budget. A proposition of eliminating health care coverage for about 300,000 low income parents by lowering the eligibility sill from 100% of the poverty level to 61% was held in California. Also New Jersey has started the phase out conscription for stumpy profits parents in the state’s joint Medicaid. Tennessee has already implemented changes that will abolish health care treatment for between 160,000 and 250,000 adults and children. Oklahoma lawmakers have accepted cuts to Medicaid that will quickly cause about 80,000 children, adults, seniors, and disabled people to be dropped from coverage, as well as near elimination of the state’s plan. More than one quarter of adult Medicaid enrolls have at least one chronic condition. They often finish taking conflicting medications. Florida is a good example of heavily touted cost savings are proving elusive in several states that have tried the approach. There are so many poor and disabled people on Missouri’s Medicaid program that would chip in for their medical costs under one money saving measure proposed by Governor Bob Holden. He recommended $280 million in budget cuts and savings and a part of it to changes related to the Medicaid health insurance program. Most of the Missouri’s Medicaid recipients do not pay for doctor’s visits, although many do pay co payments on prescription drugs. The Missouri Medicaid Program  provides health care access to low income people who are 65’s or over, blind, disabled, or members of families with dependent children. The Missouri Medicaid program is jointly financed by the federal government and Missouri State Government, and is administered by the State of Missouri, charged with administration of the Medicaid program is the Division of Medical Services, a division within the Department of Social Services. The state also has a limited medical assistance program which is funded with General Revenue and Blind Pension funds. In Washington, said that two thirds of the states are cutting Medical benefits, increasing co payments, restricting eligibility or removing poor people from the rolls because of soaring costs and plunging revenues. A new survey of all fifty states, finds that 16 are cutting Medicaid benefits, fifteen are restricting or reducing eligibility and four are increasing the co payments charged to beneficiaries. Medicaid provides health care for more than 40 million people, at an annual cost of more that $250 billion. The federal government and the states share cost, which rose 13 percent in the last fiscal year, the biggest increase. Washington State and Oregon took pride in expanding Medicaid and other health programs a decade ago, but now are wrestling with the unlikable alternative of whether to cut benefits or end legibility for some recipients. In California, proposed cutbacks that would remove nearly 500,000 low income parents from Medicaid, and state officials say even more saving will be needed. New Jersey is curtailing coverage for low income parents, by stridently dropping the greatest profits for new applicants. In Connecticut, the governs, recently planned eliminating coverage for thousands of parents in households with incomes from 100 percent to 150 percent of the deficiency level. States are giving some flexibility in providing coverage to its needy citizens because of the cost of the Medicaid program is shared by the state and federal governments. An individual who is chosen in South Carolina is not necessarily eligible in another state. South Carolina pays its physicians among the lowest Medicaid fees in the country, which is especially hard on doctors who treat a high proportion of patients who are enrolled in the program. Medicaid is already the largest and the fastest  growing element of most state budgets. This had made it a prime target of cost cutting efforts that nearly every states is now undertaking to make up for large budget shortfalls. Some states like South Carolina, have included, Medicaid cuts as part of across the board spending reductions. Others, such as Indiana and Illinois, have specifically targeted their Medicaid programs for reduction of hundreds of millions of dollars. There are many reasons for variation in Medicaid coverage and expenditures, these variations incentives that are inherent in the federal matching formula. But they also reflect a state’s ability to pay for these services, its political philosophy toward welfare families, and its recent efforts to expand coverage to pregnant women and children. The states make different decision with regard to coverage and benefits in both acute and long term care. Medicaid financed together by the federal government and the states, is the major foundation of health care funding for the low profits population in the United States. While states have considerable flexibility within federal guidelines, Medicaid programs differ across states in the numbers of community they cover and the amounts they splurge on services.