Originally published at: Republicans Coalesce Around Medicaid Work Requirements, Pretending It Won’t Impact Millions Of Enrollees
House Energy & Commerce Committee Republicans have begun their work of finding $880 billion in cuts to programs under the committee’s jurisdiction — which includes popular social safety nets like Medicare, Medicaid and Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP) — as House Republicans attempt to put together a reconciliation package. For months now, congressional Republicans have…
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Grandma Bacon told me about the Poor Houses and Poor Farms that existed before Social Security was enacted. The rule of the Poor House she volunteered at was you had to work and if you didn’t you didn’t eat. Didn’t matter if you were sick or not you had to work.
A couple people were bedridden and unable to work. Grandma made the fatal mistake of slipping them slices of pie while nobody was looking but she got caught and tossed out of the Poor House. On top of that the Board Of Overseers blacklisted Grandma as a Communist.
Nevermind that Grandma was a member of the Socialist Party (Yes folks, back in the 1920s there was still an actual Socialist Party in the US that sometimes got their candidates elected to offices!) Grandma wound up taking in boarders to make ends meet.
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What jobs are these people getting in rural areas? Are the magical iPhone screw configuration factories part of this equation? I thought the kids were taking those jobs.
These ghouls know nothing about our health care system.
Both urban & rural hospitals & medical (and dental) providers rely on Medicaid.
People are able to receive the medical care they need, and hospitals aren’t providing millions of $ in services for free (nobody is paying a $100k medical bill if they’re uninsured)
Carry that forward: hospitals and medical providers are going to recoup their losses through higher contract demands for medicare & commercial plans
Insurers aren’t going to lose money paying higher provider contracts. They’re going to increase rates.
We all lose (except the billionaires).
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the policy would have led to around 1.5 million people losing their Medicaid benefits and hundreds of thousands being left uninsured
Leaving them with only the option to get expensive emergency care. Still no mention from Republicans about reduced taxes.
work requirements
BTW, not only can we go into medical debt, but Trump’s new economy will also keep us there with higher prices and higher taxes to support our struggling billionaires.
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There were still poor houses/poor farms when I was a young child. Social Security had a major impact on people being able to stay in their own home.
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They are not working for US, the people that elected them, but for the cult. They have no clue who NEEDS Medicaid or why. They are just bowing to the Trump ‘wisdom’ that somehow somewhere they are being screwed.
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“They should be seeking the skill sets for better jobs,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who recently joined a group of House Republicans in saying he won’t support a reconciliation package that includes sweeping cuts to Medicaid, told HuffPost on Tuesday. “I think most Americans support this. If you’re an able-bodied adult with no children, you should be seeking the skills or seeking a better job.”
And what skills would those be? I’d love to seek a better job. But I had to quit my dream job because of health problems. So, how, as a 60 yr old with unreliablel health, am I going to find and maintain a better job? Who would hire a 60 yr old woman? One look at the sagging skin and they wouldn’t hire me at Starbucks, let alone a better job than the one I had. Besides the fact that if you are suffering from catastrophic illness (not me), you are actually coping with that, and the insurance company, which leaves little time for seeking jobs. Unless you are a US congressman, then no matter what your competence, a lobbying firm will hire you when you are booted out.
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The work requirements make sense. We’re going to need workers to work at all these new manufacturing plants that appeared out of thin air due to tRump’s tariffs.
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Frank Zeidler was the socialist mayor of Milwaukee, 1948 to 1960.
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I think members of Congress should have work requirements. Very specific ones. A lot of it would be homework – study that, if actually done, would eliminate from the national conversation a lot of debates – like this one – from the national agenda, where they keep popping up like bad bad pennies for decades and decades and decades.
I could easily make up a list of work requirements that would improve their performance of their legislative roles and conditions in this country.
just sayin’
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Yeah, the work requirements are cool! That will get rid of all those Medicaid parasites who are children, or are too disabled to work, or too sick, or too old to be hired. Think of the savings!
And speaking of “old”, why not “work requirements” for Medicare and Social Security, too? Oh, you worked in the past? for what? 57 years? So that means you’re NOT working now? Tough luck, parasite!
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At the very least, he needs to inform himself about how VERY few non-working able-bodied adults are in the Medicaid program and what a VERY small amount of program costs go toward paying for their health care (which most simply couldn’t afford without it – so they’d get sick and sicker and make things worse for the whole economy and their families and communities.) He also needs to inform himself of the HUGE percentage of Medicaid recipients who because of age (young and old) and/or disability status simply CANNOT hold down a job.
Bloviating ignoramuses. … And frigging Don Bacon is one of the better ones, more’s the pity.
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For years, I believed the illusion that we were a civilized country. Those days are long gone. We are such an outlier in the world. Of all the western countries, we are the only one where one political party constantly looks to find ways for people in need of help to “work” before getting any assistance.
Puritan work ethic? If you look around, you’ll see that there aren’t any freaking Puritans around. Just conservatives. And they suck.
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Every job has it’s limits on the number of people it can hire.
So what skill sets for what jobs does a person train for?
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But I thought little Bobby Jr. said people with autism will never have a job or pay taxes. It’s likely that some people with autism are eligible for disability payments. What to do?
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Make America Great (in a Dickensian Way) Again!
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And where will we find these jobs? Will they hold the job for us while we seek the skills for it? Who will train us? How will we get there, especially from rural areas with no public transportation.
Latest jobs report:
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
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The Republicans:
You’re fired! We’re defunding your schools! Healthcare is caring for profits, not you!
Also GOP:
Have more babies.
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At a bare minimum, in addition to the homework, they should have to work more days a year than children go to school. I don’t think they currently meet that standard on either point.
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This is so stupid. With a few exceptions (disabled individuals, full-time students, etc.), people on Medicaid who are able to work already do work! They just make 138% or less (for states that expanded Medicaid) of the Federal Poverty Level and their job does not offer (or does not offer affordable) health insurance.
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