Budget Accord Could Mean Payments by Medicaid Recipients
By Robert Pear
The New York Times
December 20, 2005
The final Congressional agreement on a budget bill gives states sweeping new authority to impose premiums and co-payments on Medicaid recipients…
Under the agreement, states can charge premiums and higher co-payments for a wide range of Medicaid benefits, including prescription drugs, doctors’ services and hospital care.
States can scale back benefits, capping or eliminating coverage for services that federal law now guarantees.
In addition, states can end Medicaid coverage for people who fail to pay premiums for 60 days or more. Pharmacists can refuse to fill prescriptions, and doctors and hospitals can deny services, for recipients who do not make the required co-payments.
Medicaid recipients can be charged 10 percent of the cost of any item or service if their family incomes were 100 percent to 150 percent of the federal poverty level, $12,830 to $19,245 for a family of two. Recipients with incomes above that can be required to pay 20 percent of the cost of any item or service.
Drug makers and health insurance companies escaped largely unscathed. Negotiators rejected several provisions of the Senate bill that would have cut their payments.
Representative Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas, the architect of the Medicaid provisions, said the higher co-payments were needed to “encourage personal responsibility” among low-income people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/politics/20health.html
Comment: In the glorious spirit of Christmas, Congress is extending policies that shower gifts on the health insurance industry and pharmaceutical firms.
And for Tiny Tim? They are giving him the gift of “personal responsibility.” He can go out and get his own damn crutch!