{"id":168,"date":"2012-10-29T09:50:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T13:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=168"},"modified":"2012-10-29T09:50:00","modified_gmt":"2012-10-29T13:50:00","slug":"medicaid-on-the-ballot-nytimes-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=168","title":{"rendered":"Medicaid on the Ballot – NYTimes.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

Medicaid on the Ballot – NYTimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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But one thing is clear: If [Romney] wins, Medicaid \u2014 which now covers more than 50 million Americans, and which President Obama would expand further as part of his health reform \u2014 will face savage cuts. Estimates suggest that a Romney victory would deny health insurance to about 45 million people who would have coverage if he lost, with two-thirds of that difference due to the assault on Medicaid.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, about coverage: most Medicaid beneficiaries are indeed relatively young (because older people are covered by Medicare) and relatively poor (because eligibility for Medicaid, unlike Medicare, is determined by need). But more than nine million Americans benefit from both Medicare and Medicaid, and elderly or disabled beneficiaries account for the majority of Medicaid\u2019s costs. And contrary to what you may have heard, the great majority of Medicaid beneficiaries are in working families. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For those who get coverage through the program, Medicaid is a much-needed form of financial aid. It is also, quite literally, a lifesaver. Mr. Romney has said that a lack of health insurance doesn\u2019t kill people in America; oh yes, it does, and states that expand Medicaid coverage show striking drops in mortality. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So Medicaid does a vast amount of good. But at what cost? There\u2019s a widespread perception, gleefully fed by right-wing politicians and propagandists, that Medicaid has \u201crunaway\u201d costs. But the truth is just the opposite. While costs grew rapidly in 2009-10, as a depressed economy made more Americans eligible for the program, the longer-term reality is that Medicaid is significantly better at controlling costs than the rest of our health care system. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How much better? According to the best available estimates, the average cost of health care for adult Medicaid recipients is about 20 percent less than it would be if they had private insurance. The gap for children is even larger. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Medicaid on the Ballot – NYTimes.com But one thing is clear: If [Romney] wins, Medicaid \u2014 which now covers more than 50 million Americans, and which President Obama would expand … Continue reading “Medicaid on the Ballot – NYTimes.com”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medicaid"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}