Health News
- Feds Letting Arkansas Privatize Medicaid Expansion; Idea Could Spread Like Wildfire, As In Florida, But Cost Questions Remain
Arkansas has turned heads nationally with its preliminary plan to expand Medicaid using the private insurance market, showing that the Obama administration is willing to give states more flexibility than expected in expanding the program. Health and Human...
- Feds Plan To Let States Impose Co-payments On Medicaid Patients Above Poverty Level To Encourage Them To Expand The Program
By Molly Burchett and Al Cross Kentucky Health News If Kentucky expands its Medicaid program, it will probably be able to reduce the cost by requiring patients whose incomes are above the federal poverty level to help pay for their care. That could make...
- Who Is On Medicaid Already? Not All Poor Kentuckians, Foundation President Says On Op-ed Distributed To Kentucky Newspapers
By Susan Zepeda President and CEO, Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky In the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision upholding much of the Affordable Care Act, states have many factors to weigh. Importantly, SCOTUS affirmed the right of states to opt...
- Immigrant Health Care Access & The Affordable Care Act
A recently released report entitled ?Affordable Care Act Implementation in Illinois: Overcoming Barriers to Immigrant Health Care Access? demonstrates the need for a culturally competent market place and navigator program that will cater to the complex...
- Toward A More Inclusive, Healthy Union
Two and a half years ago Congressman Joe Wilson called out across the well of Congress, "YOU LIE, Mr. President." If the never-ending news cycles leave you struggling to recall exactly what President Obama was accused of lying about, it was the inclusion...
Health News
As Medicaid eligibility expands in Kentucky, so will subsidy of undocumented immigrants' health care
As Washington lawmakers struggle to find consensus on immigration reform, U.S. taxpayers continue to shell out money to subsidize health care for illegal, undocumented immigrants. Those expenses will probably increase, with the full effect of the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion in Kentucky.
Although rarely talked about, There is an "emergency Medicaid" that reimburses a hospital for emergency care to an immigrant who is in the country illegally, reports Sandhya Somashekhar of The Washington Post. The program defines "emergency" a "sudden-onset conditions that threaten life or could cause serious impairment." It reimburses hospitals for emergency and maternity care given to people who, based on their income and other factors, would be eligible for regular Medicaid if they were legal citizens.
So, if an undocumented immigrant meets Kentucky's requirements for Medicaid, which will soon be expanded to 138 percent of the federal poverty line, he or she qualifies for the emergency program.
In 2011 alone, the federal government paid out $1.3 billion under the program, reports Somashekhar. A large percentage of those illegal immigrants receiving care are pregnant women, and so the care that's being provided is labor and delivery for children that will become U.S. citizens. "From the perspective of our health-care system, when people show up and they?re sick, the health-care system is obligated to take care of them,? Diane Rowland, executive vice president for the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, told Somashekhar.
Although rarely talked about, There is an "emergency Medicaid" that reimburses a hospital for emergency care to an immigrant who is in the country illegally, reports Sandhya Somashekhar of The Washington Post. The program defines "emergency" a "sudden-onset conditions that threaten life or could cause serious impairment." It reimburses hospitals for emergency and maternity care given to people who, based on their income and other factors, would be eligible for regular Medicaid if they were legal citizens.
So, if an undocumented immigrant meets Kentucky's requirements for Medicaid, which will soon be expanded to 138 percent of the federal poverty line, he or she qualifies for the emergency program.
In 2011 alone, the federal government paid out $1.3 billion under the program, reports Somashekhar. A large percentage of those illegal immigrants receiving care are pregnant women, and so the care that's being provided is labor and delivery for children that will become U.S. citizens. "From the perspective of our health-care system, when people show up and they?re sick, the health-care system is obligated to take care of them,? Diane Rowland, executive vice president for the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, told Somashekhar.
- Feds Letting Arkansas Privatize Medicaid Expansion; Idea Could Spread Like Wildfire, As In Florida, But Cost Questions Remain
Arkansas has turned heads nationally with its preliminary plan to expand Medicaid using the private insurance market, showing that the Obama administration is willing to give states more flexibility than expected in expanding the program. Health and Human...
- Feds Plan To Let States Impose Co-payments On Medicaid Patients Above Poverty Level To Encourage Them To Expand The Program
By Molly Burchett and Al Cross Kentucky Health News If Kentucky expands its Medicaid program, it will probably be able to reduce the cost by requiring patients whose incomes are above the federal poverty level to help pay for their care. That could make...
- Who Is On Medicaid Already? Not All Poor Kentuckians, Foundation President Says On Op-ed Distributed To Kentucky Newspapers
By Susan Zepeda President and CEO, Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky In the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision upholding much of the Affordable Care Act, states have many factors to weigh. Importantly, SCOTUS affirmed the right of states to opt...
- Immigrant Health Care Access & The Affordable Care Act
A recently released report entitled ?Affordable Care Act Implementation in Illinois: Overcoming Barriers to Immigrant Health Care Access? demonstrates the need for a culturally competent market place and navigator program that will cater to the complex...
- Toward A More Inclusive, Healthy Union
Two and a half years ago Congressman Joe Wilson called out across the well of Congress, "YOU LIE, Mr. President." If the never-ending news cycles leave you struggling to recall exactly what President Obama was accused of lying about, it was the inclusion...