Saying the state can't count on future federal funds, a legislative panel voted Wednesday to make Arizona the first -- and only -- state to withdraw from the federal Medicaid program.Read the rest here.
The plan, approved on an 8-5 vote by the Senate Appropriations Committee, would abolish the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, this state's version of Medicaid, effective Oct. 1. In its place, SB 1519 would direct the Department of Health Services to set up a program to provide care for the needy.
But that definition of "needy'' would be far more narrow than it is now.
How narrow?
Current AHCCCS enrollment, in all its programs, now exceeds 1.3 million. But AHCCCS officials said that, with people coming into and leaving the system, it provided care to about 1.8 million Arizonans last year.
By contrast, the plan by Sen. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, would provide free care for only about 80,000.
Wow. This is insulting. If you want to eliminate all public funding for health care, fine. But be honest about it when you are telling people to go off and die somewhere quietly. This is a sham. And the claim that "he does believe there is an obligation to provide for the "most vulnerable'' in society..." I think is a bald faced lie.
Wow, that's incredibly sad...
ReplyDeleteSounds like Sarah Palin's buddies are going to implement Death Panels. In the mean time they will continue Israel's universal health care because they are God's people.
ReplyDeleteHow can this not be a good thing? Medicaid drives up demand, increasing scarcity and cost elsewhere, and is broke. Bust-o. Bankrupt. You are free to make up the shortfall out of your own pocket.
ReplyDeleteIt is not a good thing because we are saying screw our countrymen while taking care of foreign nations. Not to mention we as a church and nation are free to help but we don't. When I was busy keeping my parents off the system not a single fellow Christian Orthodox or other ever offered anything more than prayer.
ReplyDeleteNo argument from me there, but what do you mean by "countrymen?" The USA is no longer a discrete nation but a borderless, consumerist idea.
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