Welfare Reform: A Matter Of Justice

Welfare Reform: A Matter of Justice

Medicaid. It is the United States Federal Government program to aid states in providing health care to the poor and impoverished who otherwise could not receive proper medical care. In 1995 the federal government spent a total of $77.4 Billion on Medicaid. This is up almost 300 percent from $20.1
Billion in 1984, only 10 years earlier. In the same 10 years state spending on
Medicaid rose over 250 percent from $16.5 Billion to $58.2 Billion. Under the current Medicaid programs, Medicaid spending will increase at an annual rate of
10 percent, to an estimated $262 Billion by the year 2002.
Medicaid spending has grown much faster than the general rate of inflation. For the Federal Government, Medicaid expenditures have grown from only 1 percent of the national budget in 1970 to over 6 percent in 1995, while state expenditures went from 8.1 percent to 13.5 percent in the same time span.
This increase can be attributed to multiple factors. First, through a series of mandates, the Federal Government has expanded the eligibility for Medicaid, requiring states to serve more people. They also increased the standards required of nursing homes. This led to higher nursing home costs which were passed directly back to the Medicaid program. The current average cost to care for a patient in a nursing home is nine times greater than that of a single dependent child. The price of medical care, in general, has drastically increased. Expensive new technology and procedures are a large part of this increase. The need for these costly new technologies is not expected to decrease, the cost will just be passed on to the public through higher prices and higher Medicaid spending. And finally, an estimated 10 percent of Medicaid payments is wasted on fraud. This is mostly fraud by health care providers, with a minuscule amount from patients with forged documents.
From 1985 to 1993 Medicaid enrollment has gone up 53 percent. In the early 1970's, Medicaid recipients were at 8 percent. Today more than 13 percent of the U.S. is receiving Medicaid's assistance. If there was no Medicaid, current cuts in employer sponsored medical coverage would have increased the uninsured population from 41 million today to an estimated 50 million pe...

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...n the same situation, and it remains acceptable, then this action is good. If someone had the means and was given the chance to aid another person who desperately needed it, would there be any circumstances in which it would be good not to offer your assistance. No rational human could refuse such an act (if they were using the categorical imperative to judge by).
Medicaid is just a centralized system of doing just that. Even though it's not working to its best possible effect, could anyone refuse to take part?
People, in this country, need to overlook their own greed. If they see that the money they work hard for is going towards bettering human life, even just one, I believe that should be reward enough. I don't believe that my money is being used to its best extent in respect to Medicaid. There needs to be major reforms in the way money is apportioned and used. There also needs to be a decrease in the need for Medical. Through incentives to businesses for providing health coverage to applicable employees, i think that this is an attainable goal. The current state of the Medicaid program is grim, but what would be the state of our nation without it.