{"id":872,"date":"2005-06-16T18:22:06","date_gmt":"2005-06-16T18:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=872"},"modified":"2005-06-16T18:22:06","modified_gmt":"2005-06-16T18:22:06","slug":"system_overhaul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=872","title":{"rendered":"System Overhaul"},"content":{"rendered":"

The topic of Medicaid continues to preoccupy the minds of our nation’s governors<\/a>. Yesterday, the National Governors Association presented its recommendations on Medicaid reform to a Congressional panel. There was a lot of consternation surrounding proposed co-payments for Medicaid enrollees. In Minnesota, most Medicaid enrollees already are required to pay co-payments for things like prescription drugs and clinic visits. I also pay a pretty hefty monthly premium for my Medcaid coverage (but that’s because I’m employed). In theory, I’m not opposed to the idea of co-payments. Health care is one of those things in which people should feel invested, even if it’s at a very basic level. A small co-payment for things like ER visits might encourage people to seek treatment sooner, before a crisis develops. I think co-payments could be structured in such a way so as to protect even the poorest beneficiaries, perhaps through a federal cap that limits co-payments to a certain percentage of income.
\nAs I keep saying, Medicaid needs reform to remain sustainable and this is one option of many worth considering. I get frustrated with lawmakers, many of them fellow Democrats, who seem unwitting to look at even modest changes to Medicaid. I’m totally with them on ensuing access to quality care for as many people as possible, but I think that goal doesn’t necessarily clash with making the system a little more participatory as well. Don’t tell anyone, but I think Medicaid could serve as the precursor to some kind of national health insurance. And if we’re serious about making national health insurance a reality, we need to start by addressing the problems and inefficiencies in the current model.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The topic of Medicaid continues to preoccupy the minds of our nation’s governors. Yesterday, the National Governors Association presented its recommendations on Medicaid reform to a Congressional panel. There was a lot of consternation surrounding proposed co-payments for Medicaid enrollees. In Minnesota, most Medicaid enrollees already are required to pay co-payments for things like prescription […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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-872","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-e4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872","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=872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}