A year ago President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the “Affordable Care Act”), guaranteeing access to health coverage for 32 million uninsured people in America including 95 percent of all children. Racial minorities are disproportionately uninsured today and the Affordable Care Act will have a particularly positive impact in communities of color if allowed to go forward.
The first pieces of the Affordable Care Act to take effect have brought critical relief to millions of children and young adults. As implementation of the law proceeds insurers can no longer deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions, impose annual or lifetime caps on coverage, or revoke coverage when someone gets sick. Insurers must cover preventive services for children without co-payments or cost sharing. Parents can keep children on their insurance until age 26 helping more than 1.2 million young adults as they graduate from school and work. The hundreds of stories in a new book by Moms Rising about how health reform has improved the lives of children and families reflect the many failures that have been fixed. We must continue to move forward.
Yet even as we celebrate health reform, the Affordable Care Act and one of its cornerstones, the Medicaid Program, are under attack. Medicaid is a health lifeline for millions of children and vulnerable people. Opponents of the Affordable Care Act have promised to repeal, roll back, or defund the law and have targeted Medicaid for “reform” that would actually cripple the program and the lives of the children and low income people who depend on it.
Medicaid currently covers close to 60 million people, including many children with disabilities or special health care needs, pregnant women, low income adults, and seniors. Under the Affordable Care Act in 2014 Medicaid will expand to reach 16 million more children, parents, and childless adults with incomes below 133 percent of poverty ($29,400 for a family of four). Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) together provide health coverage for more than one in three children and more than four in 10 births.
In February, the House of Representatives passed a bill that prohibits funding for implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Next week the House is expected to take up legislation that would allow states to cap spending for Medicaid decimating all current guarantees of coverage. In a further assault on children’s health care, the House is expected to consider legislation to repeal the maintenance of effort provision which prohibits states from cutting back on Medicaid and CHIP coverage for children until 2019.
Failing to invest in children’s health through the Medicaid program will put our nation on exactly the wrong economic track. Research has shown that an uninsured child costs the local community $2,100 more than coverage for a child with Medicaid or CHIP. Sacrificing the health and achievement of the next generation is penny-wise and pound foolish when other nations are pulling ahead and leaving our children behind.
Medicaid has served as an important safety net for hundreds of millions of children in the almost 50 years since it was enacted and played a critical role in keeping children covered during the recent recession. Children constitute more than 50 percent of total Medicaid beneficiaries but only about 20 percent of the program’s cost. The program is efficient, with administrative costs about half that of private insurers, and lower per child costs.
The low cost of covering children compared to the high costs of dealing with the consequences later is a no brainer: efforts to cut children’s coverage by capping federal Medicaid spending, repealing the maintenance of effort provision, or defunding the Affordable Care Act are all shortsighted and would be harmful to our nation’s future economic security. Strengthening our nation financially need not and must not come at the expense of our most vulnerable children’s health; strengthening our nation requires investing in children.
Follow Marian Wright Edelman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ChildDefender
With states being broke and cutting out some medications and procedures for Medicaid, I can only imagine the headaches to come in 2014...
I have been in this business for ten years, and I have yet to see a policy cancelled because someone got sick after they bought the policy. It is not allowed in this state. An insurance company can cancel a policy for one of three reasons: Failure to pay premium, Material misrepresentation of fact on the application, or if they cancel all policies in the State.
2) What do you propose to provide coverage for all children, when in fact insurers can simply "refuse" to underwrite them in many states?
As for coverage for all children, the problem is that people don't understand that insurance is the spreading around of risk - it is not a bill paying service. The state insurance laws here provide that when a child is born or adopted there is a period of time in which that child can be added to an existing policy with no questions asked. I would suggest that we extend that provision so that a person can change from one insurance plan to another - provided the coverage is comparable or less, in order to give people the opportunity to shop prices if they think their coverage is too expensive without having to worry about pre-existing condition exclusions. That is part of the intent of the coverage mandate, but believe it or not I don't think people should be required to purchase health insurance coverage - it is not the place of the Government to tell someone they have to do that.
Thank you for the work that you do on behalf of all children, Ms. Edelman!
Democrats need to stop arguing policy with modern republicans and just accept them for what they are, dishonest people running on a platform of selfishness and wickedness.
I would like to propose that until the health care crises/debate is ended and resolved, all members of the House, Senate and Executive Branch give up their Rolls Royce medical coverage and become enrolled as full participating members of Medicaid.
Unfortunately, it would probably take an act of Congress.
And what about free trade? If healthcare costs keep rising then offshoring will just continue. And there isn't anything in the Affordable Care Act that controls costs. Does anyone really think insurance corporations are in the business of controlling costs? They are in the business of maximizing your payments and minimizing your care. And Obama decided he wants the insurnace companies to remain a cornerstone of care.
If anybody approves of illegal immigration, their healthcare costs should be paid for by the family who wants them here and that includes delivery of babies and surgery.
And a subsidy is just a transfer from your taxes to the same sales person.
He personally killled the PO and forced the mandate- both things complete flips from his audacious 2008 HOPE campaign.
The problem is that they can't be denied, the plans are mostly quite high-end, and the coverage can be extended thru life. What would be 'good' would be for these politicians be forced to sign up for individual policies with all the exclusions, limitations, and deductibles (and of course no subsidy) that those policies generally have. Then they might get a better sense of how expensive health insurance (and care) really can be without subsidy. Most of them have pre-existing conditions, I'd bet!
Anyone with any modicum of sense knows that the voucher system they constantly offer would never begin to pay if something really serious were diagnosed, or a serious accident took place in your life.
I pay out one paycheck for health insurance then spend a chunk of the other on co-pays. The family doctor charges me a terrible copay then orders a bunch of work done. I take another series of days off of work to go to the facilities to have blood work done, x-rays and exams. All of which have co-pays themselves . Then I take more time off of work to go back to the doctor to pay another copay to hear what the conclusions are. The time off of work is more lost income and may result in the loss of my job. Mainly because my company refuses to invest in better health care.
Many corps fail to do even that much. They hire employees as temp contractors to avoid providing health benefits at all. As military our health care quality depended on how much the commanding officers felt like working. Some years were better then others! We had better insurance at a lower cost once, but the corp CEO's didn't like paying for it, so it went by by!
As for only the poor needing to learn more about "Wise Medical Insurance" well maybe the education needs to start with you!
And that many of the poor really do not understand how insurance works, so they say 'get government out of my insurance', with no understanding that Medicare and Medicaid are government programs.
Copays and deductibles are insane, sometimes. Unfortunately, without a single payer or the proposed health exchanges, it is probably too expensive for your company to offer a more expensive plan - and no plan will make your concerns about time off from work for tests and whatnot any different. Most medical facilities (except in the largest cities) only do testing during the day, so their workers and technicians can work 9-5 too.
And I agree with you about the temp or contracted worker situation - again, single payer or health exchanges will minimize that.
(As of October 2000, the fees were generally $30 per visit, not $7 - although I remember when they WERE $7 - even so, not a lot of reimbursement, and that's a good reason why so few doctors take Medicaid.)
Sensing a lot of anger here. Would like to understand more why you think the health care bill is destructive to the nation.
I have asked politely, and expect a response in kind.
Thanks