Block Granting Medicaid gives States power to Kill Care, Kill Constituents.

I recently posted this story...

Wisconsin Republicans should just seek death penalty for costly poor people, or is punishment more fun!

Republicans in the state have done it, they've now gone after everything a person, or family, needs to literally live; Work for food stamps, work for health care, and now work for housing. If you don't work, you don't live. We're now the death penalty state for the jobless!!!

GOP lawmakers have advanced a proposal that would require some able-bodied adults to work in order to get housing vouchers in Wisconsin.

All of this lunacy sprung out of the federal governments plan to give some leeway to the states trying a different approach to our safety net programs. You've seen what happens when voting rights are left up to the states to manage; hoops, regulations, confusion and suppression.

Block granting Medicaid the Prize: Now that Republicans control everything in Washington, Medicaid is about to become a block grant, meaning Republican states are developing plans to make it almost impossible to get health care...which is the reason they're doing this.

Kentucky is moving closer to an overhaul of the state's Medicaid program Bevin has said is aimed at controlling costs and encouraging more personal responsibility in consumers, changes that include elimination of basic dental and vision benefits for most "able-bodied" adults who instead would have to earn them through a "rewards" program.

Wanna get well? Beg me, roll over, jump, sit...the condescending cruelty of the Republican Party knows no bounds. I get a kick out the this old puzzler: "tailored to meet the unique needs of Kentuckians." Because people in Kentucky are genetically different from everyone else? 

It's hard to imagine a more bizarre set of hurdles: 

Proposed changes include monthly premiums, co-payments for services, mandatory work or volunteer activity to maintain Medicaid coverage and "lock-outs" of coverage for up to six months for some who fail to pay premiums. The state proposal also includes a "My Rewards" account where people can accumulate points for activities such as passing a GED exam, completing job training or completing wellness activities such as stop-smoking classes, points that go toward the purchase of services such as dental or vision care.

But Medicaid members also would have points deducted from their rewards account for infractions such as failing to pay premiums or "inappropriate" use of emergency rooms up to a negative balance of $150.

Richard Seckel, director of the Kentucky Equal Justice Center said other states that have attempted to impose modest premiums allowed by Medicaid have found that the cost of collecting monthly payments greatly exceeds any revenue the state takes in.

But the point has never been to help the sick or the unemployed. It's always been about vilify and punish needy.

Mark Carter, CEO of the Louisville-based Passport Health Plan, which manages care for about 300,000 Kentuckians, said the increased work will increase Passport's costs, which likely will mean more costs to the state Medicaid program. And he said it's inevitable some people won't understand the changes or be able to meet new demands and lose coverage. "…there will be some fallout from that," Carter said.