Cutting Medicaid (US issue)

[ditchdj]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/states_medicaid_woes

-----I've asked this before and I'm gonna ask it again: How is cutting Medicaid to thousands that need it gonna "save money"???? So when these peoples' kids get really sick or injured they're gonna be forced to use the ER as a doctor's office. Many hospitals are now charging almost 2,000 a pop. So YOU do the math.....

2,000 (what it now costs to walk through the ER doors) times 40 million (estimated number of uninsured which is now bound to climb). That's (so far) 80 BILLION DOLLARS the health care system will be forced to eat, a number that will go even higher. And, of course, nobody has any other option but to simply maintain the status quo because any other fix would be "sooooooo-shullllllllll-izzzzzzzmmmmmmm". Whatever.

[AFPheonix]

This is what happens when voters enact balanced budget amendments. Sure, a balance budget is great when we're having good times, but good old Keynesian economics dictates that the government becomes the spender of last resort in bad times, which means some deficit spending.
That's a lot of Washington state's problem, which I think is where this article was written. Gregoire has her hands tied and has to cut about $6 billion out of her budget and it has to come from somewhere.
Oregon is in the same boat. Our uninsured patient rate showing up to ERs has climbed 30% in the last few months.
It's really sad, I have a lot of patients who's insurance has ended or is ending here at the end of the year, and I'm trying to keep current with every way possible to help people save money, but sometimes with some drugs, there's just no alternative. I had one poor guy who only had Medicare A and B, not D the other day, and he was getting Lovenox which is a fast acting injectable blood thinner. He had to have it, but even with a free discount card I put on, the cost was still over $800 for a handful of doses. I got them phone numbers for medicare D providers in the area so here's to hoping they'll get on the ball on that.