Medicaid recipients will owe co-pays starting Jan. 1 & more people have to work for food stamps!

www.kentucky.com...

Of course people are up in arms already! I absolutely think this should have been done a long time ago.
I think this is a great way to provide care, and prevent abuse.

“massive amount of confusion and chaos.” “The timing is really terrible,” Beauregard said. “What’s the rush? Why do we need to make a big change now and another big change three months later?” “From our perspective, it’s unwise do to major changes like this back to back,” she said.

Most co-payments will be between $1 and $8, but inpatient services, such as hospital admissions or mental health and substance abuse admissions, will be $50.

www.cnn.com...

The farm bill passed by the House called for many food stamp recipients to be locked out of the program for up to three years if they fail to work or enroll in job training.

How can anyone argue with this! This isn't even saying they have to work, they just have to make the effort! C'mon!

a reply to: JAGStorm


It will definitely slow down the abuse.

a reply to: JAGStorm

110% support this.

I like this a lot. One of my biggest issues with the argument of they need to have a job in order to receive food stamps something puts them in a worse financial situation. One example: Someone has two kids. Right now they stay at home and collect food stamps. If they are forced to get a minimum wage job, they may have to find child care. The child care costs more than they make. Their other option is leaving kids along to get into who knows what. Their food stamps stay the same.

This forces people to put in effort in order to receive food stamps. You don't necessarily have to get a job, but you have to train. This is a deterrent for people to abuse the system because it takes effort. It also provides training for someone who actually uses the system properly become better suited for the work force.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Most co-payments will be between $1 and $8, but inpatient services, such as hospital admissions or mental health and substance abuse admissions, will be $50.

I'm confused if this applies to Kentucky only, or it's a federal policy, applying to all states.

At any rate, it targets the metally ill the most. That can't be good for society, in the end. If you want to tackle the opiod crises and drug abuse, you have to tackle metal health as well. Putting those services out of financial reach to the most vulnerable doesn't seem smart.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Well, I guess I'm in the minority again, but I think this is pretty silly as far as Kentucky is concerned. Kentucky is one of the states with a larger than average population of people living far below the poverty line.

And as for the CNN story?

If Congress won't make more food stamp recipients work for their benefits, the Trump administration will. The US Department of Agriculture unveiled a proposed rule Thursday that would expand work requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, as the food stamp program is formally known.

This is precisely why Trump will lose in 2020. The optics are simply awful; its as if he's intentionally and specifically targeting Democrat voters.

a reply to: Sookiechacha

I'm confused if this applies to Kentucky only, or it's a federal policy, applying to all states.

I believe it is OK on a state to state basis
news.bloomberglaw.com...

a reply to: JAGStorm

It pisses me off, for whatever that is worth.

We increased military spending, and reduced services for citizens. Seems like we are sliding backwards to me. At what point does all this new technology, and all these record profits, and the record volume on Wall St., actually start to benefit the people who have invested their tax dollars into building these things? Its wonderful that banks can make transactions immediately using the internet....that US taxpayers mostly funded to lay out the infrastructure for.

We just keep working, we keep sacrificing, we keep pushing our dollars up the chain....and keep getting a boot to the face as our reward.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Job training...

How can anyone argue with this! This isn't even saying they have to work, they just have to make the effort! C'mon!

Great idea, I wonder if I can get a government grant to start a training program to teach people how to start a yoga studio or
or how to sweep out office buildings.

Blessed to have a DUNS number.

In some cases, this is a good thing. I knew a woman back home that abused welfare, food stamps and other services as much as she could. When she did work, it was all under the table for cash so she never had to report it or pay taxes. She used fake names/id's, the works. I feel for the people whose names she used to sign up for utilities when she skipped out on paying (which she frequently did.)

That was years ago though. I don't know what it's like now as I have never used any sort of assistance.

My worry is those who legitimately need the assistance and their circumstances make it difficult to work. I hope the system has built in services for child care, or for those who are disabled in ways that do make it very hard on them to physically get by. Otherwise, this will end up hurting those that really do need a hand. The people who are dealing with mental illness stand to lose a great deal all the way around.

I think Medicaid should require a ten dollar copay on doctor visits, one dollar copay on generic meds, twenty five dollar copay or more on non-generic meds. and fifty buck deductible on ER visits, five dollar deductible on walk in clinic visits. These people should not get a free ride, they go to the doctors if their nose sniffles. Maybe putting two doctor appointments a year with no copay may be ok, but some with medicaid go every time their kid misses school because of an illness. The government must address the "need a slip from the doctor" if you miss a day of school, that rule is stupid. People do not want to have to worry about their kid getting sick later on and making sure they go to the doctor from the start to prove it was a real illness. This is driving up the cost of the medicaid program everywhere.

With a major illness on medicaid they need to have full coverage on hospital stays or the people will remain poor because they will be sued by the hospitals for not paying. So they don't go out looking for work when their medical bills get high. Hospitals send the unpaid balances to the bill collector within sixty days now, that way they get paid through the hospital safety net and get maybe a quarter on the dollar from the collection agency...which goes after the patient with a full cost and they tack on fees and interest. Nobody is going to ever get off of assistance if this kind of stuff is happening.

a reply to: rickymouse

YES!

and this:

Some Medicaid recipients will be exempt from the co-pays, including pregnant women, children, and individuals receiving hospice care. People whose income is at or below the federal poverty level also are exempt.

It seems to cover those that are most vulnerable.

a reply to: JAGStorm

But who are we kidding, our rational thoughts about how to help reduce unnecessary visits will go in one ear and out the other of the people running these programs. More money flowing through the medicaid program, the more job security for those who work for medicaid. Especially the big wheels who get a percentage of the whole budget to pay their people.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Hah!

We were fed the same sh*t back in the 80's - the "recession we had to have", trickle down economics...etc.
by a "Labor" ( somewhat like your Dems ) Government

What is interesting is that these scams are nothing new. Privatization of assets we have paid for only to then be charged usage fees, tolls, supply charges etc


Note, first applied around the Great Depression

en.wikipedia.org...

Humorist Will Rogers jokingly advised in a column in 1932:[12]

"This election was lost four and six years ago, not this year. They [Republicans] didn’t start thinking of the old common fellow till just as they started out on the election tour. The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover was an engineer. He knew that water trickles down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach the driest little spot. But he didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellows hands.

They saved the big banks, but the little ones went up the flue."

same wiki

In 1896, Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan described the concept using the metaphor of a "leak" in his Cross of Gold speech:[9][10] There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it.[11]

www.afr.com...

Except that the trickle down never happens. Accordingly, so the argument goes, we should dump trickle down economics in favour of policies to cure inequality


This is the argument that, confusingly, elected Donald Trump, voted for Brexit and now provides the policy platform of the Australian labour movement.

Trickle down economics is fake; it has never existed anywhere.
It is no more than a disparaging way of framing the ideas at the core of Australian economic policy from Bob Hawke to Malcolm Turnbull.

They leave us enough only to stop mass insurrection. Boiling frog and all that....

originally posted by: TonyS

If Congress won't make more food stamp recipients work for their benefits, the Trump administration will. The US Department of Agriculture unveiled a proposed rule Thursday that would expand work requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, as the food stamp program is formally known.

This is precisely why Trump will lose in 2020. The optics are simply awful; its as if he's intentionally and specifically targeting Democrat voters.

Then we have spin that will put whatever agenda they want on a topic. The optics is typically spin that when one actually looks at it closely the spin isn't even close.

a reply to: rickymouse

Yes, the needing a slip from the doctor is a huge one. They charge anywhere from 25 to 50 dollars for a sick note here. Do you really need to take up the doctor's time for him to tell you that you have a cold, and that he can't do anything for you, just so you can get a note for the school or employer? Waste of time and resources.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan


We just keep working, we keep sacrificing, we keep pushing our dollars up the chain....and keep getting a boot to the face as our reward.

You living some 3rd world life now bigfatfurrytexan? I'm not sure what stocks have to do with any of this directly or ever did, but stocks go up and so that means value of a company goes up, and that means the company is growing, and that means more jobs, and that means more of the better paying jobs too, and that means lower unemployment rate...

So when does it all start to benefit the working class?

At the micro level... your area needs 10 more workers to meet the demands...you hire 10 more, then hire 2 more supervisors that could create the need for another manager. Your buddy working the line for 5 years gets moved to a supervisor position, and you as a supervisors get a manager position... Value of the company goes up and so does the stock, so it seems stock value is just a reaction to the benefits already affecting the workers.

a reply to: JAGStorm

This article is from 2017 but does provide some insight here.

www.cbpp.org...

Most SNAP recipients who can work do so. Among SNAP households with at least one working-age, non-disabled adult, more than half work while receiving SNAP — and because many workers turn to SNAP when they are between jobs, more than 80 percent work in the year before or after receiving SNAP. The rates are even higher for families with children. (About two-thirds of SNAP recipients are not expected to work, primarily because they are children, elderly, or disabled.)

a reply to: Xtrozero

I'm not sure what stocks have to do with any of this directly or ever did, but stocks go up and so that means value of a company goes up, and that means the company is growing, and that means more jobs, and that means more of the better paying jobs too, and that means lower unemployment rate...

The one does not equal the other. Companies are constantly trying new ways to reduce their work force. Either through off shore workers or automation.

And btw. When trump gave companies back some money. What did they do? Buy back stock. And I'm pretty sure that money went into executive bonuses as well.

If you want more jobs. You need to put more money into the hands of the middle class. When the middle class has more money to purchase food, luxuries etc. Then companies have to hire workers.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

We increased military spending, and reduced services for citizens

pisses me off too. what pisses me off more is that we (America) was just about to do something about that during bush's 2nd term. everyone was really up in arms about the wars and thier costs...then the smooth talking community organizer got elected POTUS and war was AWESOME again.