Texas may end Medicaid

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Some Republican lawmakers — still reveling in Tuesday’s statewide election sweep — are proposing an unprecedented solution to the state’s estimated $25 billion budget shortfall: dropping out of the federal Medicaid program.

Far-right conservatives are offering that possibility in impassioned news conferences. Moderate Republicans are studying it behind closed doors. And the party’s advisers on health care policy say it is being discussed more seriously than ever, though they admit it may be as much a huge in-your-face to Washington as anything else.

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The Heritage Foundation, a conservative research organization, estimates Texas could save $60 billion from 2013 to 2019 by opting out of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, dropping coverage for acute care but continuing to finance long-term care services.

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State Representative John M. Zerwas, Republican of Simonton, an anesthesiologist who wrote the bill authorizing the health commission’s Medicaid study, said ... that he was not ready to discount the idea, but that he worried about who would carry the burden of care without Medicaid’s “financial mechanism.”

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State Senator Jane Nelson, Republican of Flower Mound, who heads the Senate Public Health Committee, said dropping out of Medicaid was worth considering — but only if it made fiscal sense without jeopardizing care.

Currently, the Texas program costs $40 billion for a period of two years, with the federal government paying 60 percent of the bill. As a result of federal health care changes, Ms. Nelson said, millions of additional Texans will be eligible for Medicaid.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/us/politics/07ttmedicaid.html

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

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Medicaid: the assault begins

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Now, there's another proposal squarely on the table. Just stop doing Medicaid. Stop providing coverage for poor people. Nearly 60 million Americans get their care through Medicaid; this includes roughly one-quarter of the nation's children.

If Texas followed through and opted out of Medicaid, I doubt it would mean that no poor person in Texas could get treatment. What it would mean is that without the state's contributions, reimbursement rates would fall even lower, and presumably many more doctors and hospitals would stop treating poor people for all but the most basic-maintenance conditions.

I see little reason to think Texas won't do this eventually. It saves billions; it's a way to confront Obamacare; and after all, poor people vote Democratic, when they vote, and Texas is run by Republicans. And I see little reason to think that other states, especially in the south but potentially all over as long as Republicans have enough control, won't follow suit. Southern states, unsurprisingly, have higher percentages of Medicaid enrollees, since they're poorer on average.

It is certainly true that Congress over the years has expanded Medicaid eligibility. Conservatives see that as drunken-sailor spending. I would say that Congress has stepped in to fill gaps discovered in the private-insurance system, as costs began to go through the roof and private insurers began tightening eligibility requirements and saying no more often. Medicaid is also designed to cover more people during economic downturns.

So a very fundamental fight is coming here. The odds, especially after last Tuesday's results, are that the conservatives will win. We've been reading for years that, of Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid, it was likely that Medicaid would fall first, because the other two programs aren't means-tested; they serve middle- and upper-income people, so they'll probably survive. But Medicaid...

No solution is easy here, and I won't pretend that just lecturing you about millions of sick children can make the money appear. But what Texas is looking into is a solution to other problems, political and fiscal ones, not the problem of public health, of which it's apparently just washing it hands, if this comes to pass.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

While I think the medicaid system gets used/abused plenty of times, this is a bit much....

Of course only an idiot would have supported the Texas Republican party in this election anyway.... They'll soon be passing their legislation on what you can and cannot do in the bedroom.....

ugh.

[peejay 327]

While I think the medicaid system gets used/abused plenty of times, this is a bit much....

Of course only an idiot would have supported the Texas Republican party in this election anyway.... They'll soon be passing their legislation on what you can and cannot do in the bedroom.....

ugh.

Sodomy laws got tossed long ago in Texas. Why would anyone go there again? They were and are unenforceable anyway.

In any case...I haven't heard of any revival of such laws.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Sodomy laws got tossed long ago in Texas. Why would anyone go there again? They were and are unenforceable anyway.

In any case...I haven't heard of any revival of such laws.

apparently you haven't read this years Republican Party of Texas platform.....

[peejay 327]

apparently you haven't read this years Republican Party of Texas platform.....

I didn't until just now. It's kind of long and tedious, so I have to admit that I skimmed through it. Best as I could see the only reference to the old Sodomy Laws is as follows:

Texas Sodomy Statutes – We oppose the legalization of sodomy. We demand that Congress exercise its authority

granted by the U.S. Constitution to withhold jurisdiction from the federal courts from cases involving sodomy.

My interpretation is that they oppose laws that specifically legitimatize and legalize sodomy. Apparently there are no laws making it legal or illegal either way. Big f*cking deal. As with most things...the devil is in the details. Since the old sodomy laws were struck down anyway and no longer exist, they are against legislative proclamations that attempt to support and legitimize such behaviors. Kind of like "don't ask, don't tell" or "we don't want to know". They are just stating that they don't want statutes that force the state to embrace such behaviors as legitimate. They don't want someone else's agenda rammed down their throats. That's what I get out of it. That's a far cry from regulating what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms.

Here is the text I read. Let me know if I missed something while speed reading. Let me know if it advocates regulating what me, my wife, or anyone else does in the privacy of our own homes.:

http://static.texastribune.org/media/documents/FINAL_2010_STATE_REPUBLICAN_PARTY_PLATFORM.pdf