Medicaid Over Education

NCBuy.com Medicaid Spending Overtakes Education By KEVIN FREKING Associated Press Writer States now spend more on health care for the poor than they do on elementary and secondary education, a policy group said Thursday in its annual review of efforts to deal with the growing problem of the uninsured. The states spent 21.9 percent of their revenue on Medicaid in fiscal year 2004. Elementary and second education consumed about 21.5 percent of states' budgets. Higher education came in at a distant third, 10.5 percent. Makes since doesn't it. As our education level drops the people needing assistance increases. I'm completly against the welfare state that the US has become since the great "New Deal". I'm not an expect on insurance but I have made some observations. The first being that when someone is given something for nothing they tend to abuse it. Go to the ER, and hang around the admitance desk. See how many people use the 'caid compared to their own insurance. Listen to someone on the 'caid, little Johnny gets a 1 degree fevor and off to the doctor we go (paraphased from an actual conversation with a neighbor). Insurance costs are up not because more people are using it but because more people are abusing it. We have to face the fact that corporations are cutting costs everywhere they can to compete in the world market that is opening. Insurance is a high cost that they are cutting nothing I see coming will change that. But if we want to slow it down we had better look at ourselves and see what we can do to help ourselves. And what Maryland is doing is to Wal Mart hurts the people the law says it intends to help. Who do you think will pay for the cost of employee insurance? Wal Mart, no. You will the consumer, the cost of this law will be passed down to the people that shop at Wal Mart. There's your state looking out for you. Read the rest of the article in the extended section. "Today, Medicaid accounts for the largest and fastest growing category of state expenditures," said the State Coverage Initiatives program, which provides technical support to help states broaden health insurance coverage. The program's 2006 report shows that many states are working toward expanding health insurance coverage, but they go about it in many ways. In Illinois, the state will make insurance coverage available to all uninsured children. Premiums will be charged on a sliding scale based on income. Maryland passed legislation that would require private-sector firms employing more than 10,000 people to spend at least 8 percent of payroll on health care. The legislation targeted Wal-Mart. Montana passed a bill that encourages small businesses to join together to obtain health insurance. The state provides tax incentives to businesses that offer insurance through the program. The report also noted reductions in health insurance coverage, such as in Tennessee, where an estimated 320,000 people were removed from the state's Medicaid rolls. The increase in Medicaid costs for the states stems from the continued decline in employer-sponsored health insurance, the report said. Medicaid generally covers children who lost access to employer-sponsored coverage, but those programs often don't cover adults who have lost such coverage. ___ On the Net: State of the States report: http://www.statecoverage.net/pdf/stateofstates2006.pdf