Big Cuts In Medicaid Is A Bell That Tolls For the Middle Class, Too
The ultra-conservative smirkers in Washington and state capitals think Medicaid is an easy target. After all, most of the program’s beneficiaries are poor women or kids. The former don’t vote all that much. The latter can’t vote. So politically speaking — and how else do ultra-conservatives speak these days, compassion and common decency being so, so liberal — politically speaking, Medicaid seems like a great big step to squeeze out huge cuts in government spending. Except…
Except that while most of the program’s beneficiaries are in fact poor women and children, the majority of the program’s actual spending goes elsewhere. It goes to paying for the elderly in nursing homes.
So when the Medicaid gougers achieve their goals, which looks to be fairly soon, there will be less money to pay for mom and dad when it comes time to send them off to a pleasant and well run old folks warehouse. Which means that these oldsters, instead of gifting their kids until they get broke enough to qualify for Medicaid nursing care, which so many older parents do these days, they will have to keep the money for their own care. Leaving less for the kids. Or maybe move in with the kids and let them care for the older generation at the expense of their own middle age lives.
It may take a few years, But be assured, When the gigglers who are making our government policy these days finish doing the sign of the dollar over the land in the Medicaid realm, happily going after people they see as too weak and helpless to defend themselves, they are going to stick it to the middle class as well. Big time.
They won’t care, though. Because they have the power. They aren’t sidetracked by trying to bring the country together. They divide, They rule. They destroy. And those they really serve, the real string pullers, will most certainly see that they are kept comfortable in their own old age.
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24 Responses to “Big Cuts In Medicaid Is A Bell That Tolls For the Middle Class, Too”
So you’re seriously arguing that the government has an interest in promoting intergenerational wealth transfer?
God forbid that people spend their own money for their own care or rely on their families for help. What a horrific outcome!
So you’re seriously arguing that the government has an interest in promoting interCLASS wealth transfer?
It’s not like the wealthy have gained income and shares of wealth while the lower class went south…
O)n a serious note, isn’t SS and Medicare a tax on those under 65, while a intergenerational wealth transfer to seniors. If the old farts can’t take care of them selves, just let them DIE…
Rudi,
Prove that government drives wealth or income distribution and I’ll admit you have an argument.
In the absence of that, false equivalence is false.
That’s just the point Rudi. Nonpoor seniors should pay for themselves thus reducing the amount of wealth transfer to seniors from the young and reducing the government subsidy of transfer upon death.
The pay-as-you-go Social Security and Medicare are unsustainable in their current form. It would be so much better if people, first of all, if some people admitted this, and proceeded with the rest of us to what really matters, what reforms to make to save them.
* * *
I’m glad someone caught the Medicaid story. While even today another investigative body learned how Medicaid patients (this time, i.e., this study, children — also examining S-CHIP) faced access problems (as we know Medicaid and Medicare patients do everywhere — Medicaid obviously is worse),
(Chicago-area study of children’s health care access)
http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/health/5997549-423/study-medicaid-kids-suffer-bias-in-getting-treatment.html
at the same time, obviously “entitlement reform” is easy to start with if Medicaid is attacked first, which reduces federal expenses easily (though it’s the opposite of what the state governments want! Some like Perry’s Texas have hinted at dropping out of the program), by selecting a convenient target, for the poor have little to no voice.
This, while states already are looking to make Medicaid cuts, such as in Arizona:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/06/16/20110616arizona-ahcccs-medicaid-lawsuit-supreme-court.html
or in Rick Scott’s Florida [tm]:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/health/os-medicaid-hearing-20110616,0,7866562.story
Even the lib news-mags can take time off from tabloid stuff and remind readers that the inter-generational wealth transfer* is part of the problem; it’s not limited to cutting poor programs** in and of itself.
http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/the-best-life/2011/06/16/protecting-senior-benefits-puts-medicaid-at-risk
Even without possible planned cuts, more problems lie ahead, as this story notes, which also notes the nature of support for Medicare and Social Security versus that for Medicaid**.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/health/policy/16medicaid.html
* And this is without currently any “Gray Panther” fears of old, this when the Baby Boomers are set to retire! What happens when the new elderly start getting especially politically active in their own interest, too?
** (two items noted) Once again you are forewarned about converting universal entitlements to poor-directed programs via means testing. Less support by the middle class will make SS and Medicare, too, fat targets for quick cuts if they are converted to poor-assistance by means testing. Devil’s Advocate DLS knows the deal. And Medicare mischief you see now exemplifies it.
Remember that seniors are THE most reliable voting block in the country. As much as I loathe the GOP, I doubt even they are that stupid to not understand that.
I’ll be surprised if it really plays out as badly as Mike suspects.
Steve in CH[I] wrote:
Unsurprising — he also refers to “ultra-conservative” [sic] politicians.
Barky — you understand. Grey Panther fears died in the 1990s-2000s because first good times (later, a bubble), then other things like wars (and the bubble bursting) that presumably merited more attention.
It remains to be seen what happens when the Baby Boomers retire and as the demographic doom of the status quo proceeds year by year.
(I say, watch politicians strive for “equilibrium,” balancing the howling of the retirees versus the howling of the taxpayers.)
Another account of the “children’s Medicaid health-care access study” is here. Again note the irony that the program may be cut as part of debt-limit dealing, while stimulus-related measures included boosts for Medicaid that are ending, and at the same time, ironically, it is insufficient as it is, underpaying providers to the point that they often refuse Medicaid patients, and arguably substantially more, not less, needs to be spent on it. (The same is true to a related extent with Medicare.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/health/policy/16care.html
One last note — recall one of the really stupid gimmicks of ObamaCare (the new health care law and Act).
http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/16/why-health-care-compact-could-be-answer-to-medicaid-crisis/
It only moves the states to want more strongly to opt out if they don’t get the “flexibility” (granted hopefully by an overweening, ridiculously intrusive and imperious federal government) that they desire.
Cheers!
If our private insurance system worked I’d say keep it. But EU single payer is cheaper and has better health results. Why not completely privatizes all roads and defense?
Wait Rudi, weren’t you supposed to prove government responsibility for wealth distribution?
On the substance of your new topic, can I use you health insurance?
From the commies at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
In plain English, if you want to reduce wealth & income disparity, tax the hell out of rich people and give that money to poor people…
Wow DQ, a paper from 1996 talking about tax rates in 84 versus 89. That’s pretty compelling.
And DQ, you do know that effective tax rates are what people pay, not marginal ones I hope, rendering your plutocracy chart meaningless ; )
And of course, tax rates on the top 1% are up 3 percentage points from 1984 to today while rates on average are slightly down. But I’m sure that’s the driver of greater distribution of income to the top 1%.
Seriously, you guys need to start looking at information as opposed to searching for people who write things that you agree with.
Actually Rudi, you can have public and privatized health care insurance. Germany is a great example of both working effectively. Sure, it has problems, but I’d take public care in Germany over PPO in the US any day of the week!
The part I find ironic in DQ’s assessment, is that it comes from the (a) Federal Reserve bank, which is probably the biggest enabler of wealth concentration ever created.
The tax rates are a good stop gap, but I’d prefer to strike at the root.
The same forces who want to dismantle social security and medicaid (and don’t kid yourself, they wanted to do so long before there was a fiscal crisis) are the same forces who are just fine with a society that is fragmented into factions of haves and have nots. Law of the jungle? Just peachy! Hey, you can always live in a gated “community” right?
“As inequality rises, two phenomena almost always occur: The wealthy develop a sense of entitlement, and they increasingly seek to insulate themselves from the rest of society. As a consequence, they become less dependent on public services and less
connected to the concerns of the rest of society. Inevitably, this leads [them] to oppose tax increases that would fund enhanced public amenities. Instead,
they use their wealth to obtain political influence that solidifies their privileges. At this point, the divided nation becomes polarized and the government becomes incapable of decisive action.” Bruce Judson
There is no root…
Whether there is a Federal Reserve, in any capitalist system wealth will accumulate at the top… It’s the nature of Capitalism…
Either the government can prevent the wealth accumulation from getting out of hand or we’ll become a police state in which the haves will buy private security and death squads to keep the have-nots from rebelling…
I have to say, I like Don Q’s hyped “PLUTOCRACY REBORN” graph, which includes one of the key “slides” from the NBER report that I’ve posted here, and that has been used by others already.
http://www.nber.org/data-appendix/w8467/w8467-app.pdf
http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saezJEEA-PP05us-canada.pdf
http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2008.pdf
Of course, it should be noted again that there is no returning to those “golden years” around 1948-73 (if 25 years explicitly).