{"id":1116,"date":"2006-02-06T21:23:44","date_gmt":"2006-02-06T21:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=1116"},"modified":"2006-02-06T21:23:44","modified_gmt":"2006-02-06T21:23:44","slug":"family_values","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=1116","title":{"rendered":"Family Values"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><DIV>A few days ago, I wrote about the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 and the hardships that it imposes on Medicaid recipients.&nbsp; But there are a few bright spots in the legislation, particularly the <A href=\"http:\/\/www.easterseals.com\/site\/PageServer?pagename=OPA_Family_Opportunity\">Family Opportunity Act<\/A>.&nbsp; The FOA enables low-income and middle-income families to <A href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/nation\/washington\/articles\/2006\/02\/06\/act_would_allow_paying_to_get_medicaid\/\">purchase Medicaid for their disabled children on a sliding-fee basis<\/A>.&nbsp; Currently, many working parents of children with disabilities have keep their incomes artificially low to ensure that their kids will continue to qualify for Medicaid, which sometimes means turning down a raise or a promotion.&nbsp; The FOA will remove those disincentives and allow parents to increase their earnings without jeopardizing their children&#8217;s access to health care<\/DIV><DIV>&nbsp;<\/DIV><DIV>The FOA is modeled on existing buy-in models that some states have already implemented, including Minnesota and Wisconsin.&nbsp; My own family benefited from Wisconsin&#8217;s <A href=\"http:\/\/dhfs.wisconsin.gov\/bdds\/kbp\/index.htm\">Katie Beckett<\/A> program when I was a kid.&nbsp; Without it, my parents might have had to face the very real possibility of surrendering custody of me to the state as the only means of getting me the care I required.&nbsp; It&#8217;s good to know that parents across the country will now have similar assistance available to them.<\/DIV><DIV>&nbsp;<\/DIV><DIV>However, it should be noted that the FOA passed because of intensive lobbying by concerned parents over the last several years.&nbsp; Contrast that with the cuts that will affect the poorest Medicaid recipients.&nbsp; Politicians don&#8217;t want to give the impression they&#8217;re voting against working families, but it&#8217;s a little easier to punish a group of people that is essentially powerless and voiceless in the halls of Congress.&nbsp; <\/DIV><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few days ago, I wrote about the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 and the hardships that it imposes on Medicaid recipients.&nbsp; But there are a few bright spots in the legislation, particularly the Family Opportunity Act.&nbsp; The FOA enables low-income and middle-income families to purchase Medicaid for their disabled children on a sliding-fee basis.&nbsp; <a href='https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=1116' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-1-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Iwau-i0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}