It is Time to Expand Medicaid Coverage in South Carolina
When it validated the constitutionality of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2012, the United States Supreme Court also ruled that states could decide for themselves whether or not to expand their Medicaid programs (Sonfield, 2012). Predictably, South Carolina said no. The Palmetto State’s decision not to expand Medicaid in concert with the Affordable Care Act was wrong, and it is time to correct that mistake.
The leadership’s decision not to expand Medicaid leaves between 300,000 and 400,000 South Carolinians without health insurance (South Carolina Medical Association, 2012). The stated intent of the Affordable Care Act, pejoratively dubbed “Obamacare” by its critics, was to put affordable health care within reach of more of the 40 million Americans who lacked health insurance. The law’s grand design included an assumption that states would expand their Medicaid programs, since the federal government would pay 100 percent of the expansion costs through 2016, and 90 percent thereafter. But in demonstrating its traditional mistrust of Washington’s promises, Columbia declined the offer and, in the process, left thousands of low-income workers without the means to obtain health coverage, either because they cannot afford the premiums or because their employers do not provide it. (Advisory Committee, 2013). Ironically, in a state where the median annual income is $44,600, South Carolina’s working poor earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid; however, they would be covered under the ACA model (Hailsmaier and Blasé, 2010).
While voluntary, non-compliance with Obamacare’s strategy will cost the state. South Carolina’s share of the nation’s ACA-engineered Med...
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South Carolina Medical Association. (2012, August 8). Medicaid Expansion: What is best for South Carolina? Retrieved May 16, 2014, from South Carolina Medical Association: https://www.scmedical.org/newsroom/article/medicaid-expansion-what-is-best-for-south-carolina
The Daily Briefing. (2013). Where Each State Stands on Medicaid Expansion. Advisory Board Company.
Wenger, Y. (2008, August 28). Tax: SC Cigarette Tax Increase . Retrieved May 17, 2014, from Smokers Club, Inc.: http://www.smokersclubinc.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1994
Zaleski, G. (2014, April 1). South Carolina’s health costs continue to rise following decision not to expand Medicaid. Retrieved May 17, 2014, from MEDCITY News: http://medcitynews.com/2014/04/south-carolinas-health-costs-continue-rise-following-decision-expand-medicaid/
One of the most controversial topics in the United States in recent years has been the route which should be undertaken in overhauling the healthcare system for the millions of Americans who are currently uninsured. It is important to note that the goal of the Affordable Care Act is to make healthcare affordable; it provides low-cost, government-subsidized insurance options through the State Health Insurance Marketplace (Amadeo 1). Our current president, Barack Obama, made it one of his goals to bring healthcare to all Americans through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. This plan, which has been termed “Obamacare”, has come under scrutiny from many Americans, but has also received a large amount of support in turn for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons include a decrease in insurance discrimination on the basis of health or gender and affordable healthcare coverage for the millions of uninsured. The opposition to this act has cited increased costs and debt accumulation, a reduction in employer healthcare coverage options, as well as a penalization of those already using private healthcare insurance.
I am terribly ashamed to admit that prior to this class I really did not have a position on the Affordable Care Act (ACA). I simply ignored what was going on because I had insurance through my employer and I didn’t feel like the ACA would have that much bearing on my life. I was aware of some of the positive and negative aspects but had not really given it all a lot of thought. The one thing that did intrigue and interest me was the potential for Medicaid expansion. This was both exciting and troublesome because my job is totally structured around people who qualify for Medicaid. Increasing the rosters would have had a drastic effect on what I do and would have meant tremendous growth for my business but since Tennessee opted not to expand
Healthcare in the U.S. has recently been affected by implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010. The intent is to create a healthca...
Fontenot, S. (2013). Understanding the Affordable Care Act Bit by Bit: Will Transparency and Sunshine Shrink Costs?. Physician Executive, 39(5), 86-91.
Under the Affordable Care Act one of the most important provisions is to expand health care to low income families through Medicaid. This could have an effect on over eight million people who do not have access to health care currently. However 25 states have decided against expanding Medicaid benefits, leaving 13.5 million people less likely to receive basic health care and preventative ...
As part of the Affordable Care Act, beginning this year Medicaid will expand eligibility to include all uninsured individuals under the age of 65 whose incomes fall at or below 138 percent of the Federal Poverty Level, or about $32,500 for a family of four. However, the 2012 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the law also allowed states more flexibility concerning what parts of the ACA they can implement and said that those same states would not lose federal funding for their existing programs. This result would leave the decision to opt out of the law's provision into the hands of state legislators. While twenty-six states have chosen to expand healthcare coverage, twenty-one states have not and four have yet to make a decision. The state of Florida is among those not seeking to expand coverage and that decision alone could cost Florida millions of dollars a year in tax penalties. As conservative and liberal state lawmakers square off into a maelstrom of debate over whether Medicaid should cover more people, thousands of uninsured Floridians will be caught in the crossfire.
...ty to all individuals and families below the 138% federal poverty line. As of right now, twenty five states have rejected this idea of medicaid expansion. By rejecting this proposal, this will leave many Americans uninsured and up the cost of private insurance and taxes.
In recent years, the number of Americans who are uninsured has reached over 45 million citizens, with millions more who only have the very basic of insurance, effectively under insured. With the growing budget cuts to medicaid and the decreasing amount of employers cutting back on their health insurance options, more and more americans are put into positions with poor health care or no access to it at all. At the heart of the issue stems two roots, one concerning the morality of universal health care and the other concerning the economic effects. Many believe that health care reform at a national level is impossible or impractical, and so for too long now our citizens have stood by as our flawed health-care system has transformed into an unfixable mess. The good that universal healthcare would bring to our nation far outweighs the bad, however, so, sooner rather than later, it is important for us to strive towards a society where all people have access to healthcare.
Such rising health care costs penalize the citizens within our nation in multiple aspects. The first set of individuals that are affected are families and seniors because it affects the amount of money that goes into their pockets, which results in a difficult time balancing food, rent, and the basic necessities for living. Next, small businesses and fortune 500 employers are affected because such increased costs cause rising health care costs to become more expensive to add new employees to their payroll and more difficult to cover retiree fees when that time comes. Finally, the federal, state, and local governments are forced to increase Medicare and Medicaid costs, which results in cutting other priority funding such as public safety and education.
Health Insurance is one of the nations top problems, the cost is rising for premiums, and many businesses just cannot afford it. As Americans many of us have the luxury of health insurance, but far too many of us have to go without it. This is something that always seems to brought up at congressional debates, but little is done about it. “In 2013 there were 41 million people reported with out health insurance coverage, this is too many considering those people probably were sick at some point through out the year, and they couldn’t afford treatment.” We need to find someway to make sure that every citizen of the United States is able to have affordable healthcare for themselves, and their families.
The author identifies some of the federal and state legislators that are also opposed to the Medicaid expansion in the writer’s district. US Senator John Cornyn says that the Obamacare Medicaid expansion program is formed to be wasteful, fraudulent, and abusive to the nation (Cornyn, 2010). According to US Senator Cornyn, “The $3.4 trillion federal taxpayers spend on the Medicaid program is a target for waste, fraud, and abuse. Instead of fixing these problems, the President’s new health care overhaul includes the largest expansion of the broken Medicaid program since its creation in 1965: it’s only going to get worse from here” (John Cornyn, 2010).
Reese, Philip. Public Agenda Foundation. The Health Care Crisis: Containing Costs, Expanding Coverage. New York: McGraw, 2002.
Medicaid is a broken system that is largely failing to serve its beneficiary’s needs. Despite its chronic failures to deliver quality health care, Medicaid is seemingly running up a gigantic tab for tax payers (Frogue, 2003). Medicaid’s budget woes are secondary to its insignificant structure, leaving its beneficiaries with limited choices, when arranging for their own health care. Instead, regulations are set in order to drive costs down; instead of allowing Medicaid beneficiaries free rein to choose whom they will seek care from (Frogue, 2003)
“From the very beginning…. Obama’s message was not that the law would result in higher premiums, but better coverage. It was that the law would lower premiums, end of story” (Roy). Yet another promise has found itself broken after the ACA came into the sunlight of reality. “His $1 trillion in tax increases [hit] the middle class hard…” Mitt Romney said, “… in the health care system I envision, costs will be brought under control not because a board of bureaucrats decrees it but because everyone- providers, insurers, and patients –has incentives to do it” Unfortunately, that isn’t how it is. The nation is being forced into healthcare or being penalized for not joining the masses, because this plan will only work if there’s enough healthy people paying their newly doubled premiums regularly to help offset the expenses the unhealthy have right of the bat. “Back when Obamacare was being debated in Congress, Democrats claimed that it was right-wing nonsense that premiums would go up under Obamacare” (Roy). It’s now obvious that right-wing was headed in the right direction, and the middle class was
"State of Tobacco Control 2013." State of Tobacco Control® 2013. American Lung Association, n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2013.