Is a $5,000 salary too much for Medicaid?
In a Thursday, July 26, 2012 photo, Sandra Pico, 52, holds medications she takes, at her home in North Miami Beach, Fla. / AP Photo
(AP) MIAMI - Sandra Pico is poor, but not poor enough.
She makes about $15,000 a year, supporting her daughter and unemployed husband. She thought she'd be able to get health insurance after the Supreme Court upheld President Barack Obama's health care law.
Then she heard that her own governor won't agree to the federal plan to extend Medicaid coverage to people like her in two years. So she expects to remain uninsured, struggling to pay for her blood pressure medicine.
"You fall through the cracks and there's nothing you can do about it," said the 52-year-old home health aide. "It makes me feel like garbage, like the American dream, my dream in my homeland is not being accomplished."
Many working parents like Pico are below the federal poverty line but don't qualify for Medicaid, a decades-old state-federal insurance program. That's especially true in states where conservative governors say they'll reject the Medicaid expansion under Obama's health law.
In South Carolina, a yearly income of $16,900 is too much for Medicaid for a family of three. In Florida, $11,000 a year is too much. In Mississippi, $8,200 a year is too much. In Louisiana and Texas, earning more than just $5,000 a year makes you ineligible for Medicaid.
Governors in those five states have said they'll reject the Medicaid expansion underpinning Obama's health law after the Supreme Court's decision gave states that option. They favor small government and say they can't afford the added cost to their states even if it's delayed by several years. Some states estimate the expansion could ultimately cost them a billion dollars a year or more.
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Many of the people affected by the decision are working parents who are poor — but not poor enough — to qualify for Medicaid.
Republican Mitt Romney's new running mate, conservative Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan, has a budget plan that would turn Medicaid over to the states and sharply limit federal dollars. Romney hasn't specifically said where he stands on Ryan's idea, but has expressed broad support for his vice presidential pick's proposals.
Medicaid now covers an estimated 70 million Americans and would cover an estimated 7 million more in 2014 under the Obama health law's expansion. In contrast, Ryan's plan could mean 14 million to 27 million Americans would ultimately lose coverage, even beyond the effect of a repeal of the health law, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation of Ryan's 2011 budget plan.
For now, most states don't cover childless adults, but all states cover some low-income parents. The income cutoff, however, varies widely from state to state.
Most states cover children in low-income families. Manuel and Sandra Pico's 15-year-old daughter is covered by Medicaid. But the suburban Miami couple can't afford private insurance for themselves and they make too much for Florida's Medicaid.
Manuel Pico, a carpenter, used to make more than $20,000 a year, but has struggled to find work in the last three years after the real estate market collapsed. He occasionally picks up day jobs or takes care of the neighbor's yard. Sandra Pico would like to work full time, but can't afford to pay someone to watch her 34-year-old sister, who has Down syndrome.
"No matter how hard I work, I'm not going to get anywhere," Sandra Pico said. "If you're not rich, you just don't have it."
In San Juan, Texas, 22-year-old Matthew Solis makes about $8,700 a year — too much to qualify for Medicaid in that state. Solis, a single father with joint custody of his 4-year-old daughter, said he works about 25 hours per week at a building supply store making minimum wage and is a full-time college student at the University of Texas-Pan American. He aspires to be a school counselor.
He recently sought medical care for food poisoning, visiting a federally funded clinic. But he doesn't see a doctor regularly because he can't afford private insurance. The new health law allows young adults to remain on their parents' insurance until age 26. But that doesn't help Solis, whose father is uninsured and whose mother died of leukemia when he was 8.
"I voted for him (Obama) because he promised we would have insurance," Solis said. "I'm pretty upset because I worked for Obama and I still don't have coverage."
His governor, Rick Perry, like Pico's governor, Rick Scott, is rejecting the Medicaid expansion. So Solis too is out of luck unless his circumstances dramatically change.
In all but one of the states where governors are rejecting or leaning against the expansion, the income level that disqualifies a parent from Medicaid is below the federal poverty line. Only in New Jersey, where Gov. Chris Christie has said he's leaning against the expansion, is Medicaid available to parents with incomes at the poverty line and slightly above. New Jersey will cover a parent making $24,645 in a family of three.
Most states base Medicaid eligibility for parents on household income and how it compares to the federal poverty level, which was $18,530 for a family of three in 2011, the year being used for easier state-by-state comparisons.
In Louisiana, the eligibility cutoff for a working parent is 25 percent of federal poverty, or $4,633 for a family of three. In Nevada, it's 87 percent of the federal poverty level, or $16,121 for a family of three.
That's been the range in states where governors are likely saying no to expanded Medicaid.
In contrast, states where governors have said they'll expand Medicaid are more generous with working parents. The Medicaid eligibility cutoff ranges in those states from Washington's $13,527 to Minnesota's $39,840.
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They tell us what to eat, what to buy, take our money and homes anytime they want. WE ARE IN BIG TROUBLE. We will not be able to get medical care because most of us will not be able to pay for it, and they will kick us out of the hospitals.
CBS reports in this article that, "In South Carolina, a yearly income of $16,900 is too much for Medicaid for a family of three." I haven't the slightest doubt based on Governor Nikki Haley's record thus far that she will not be satisfied until that number drops by at least half. I'd like to see all these governors' try and support their families at the poverty level, including paying for their health care. The Gov. Haley's 14-year-old daughter has been working part-time this summer in a state run gift shop. That job should have gone to a needy family.
Most of your assumptions are faulty, the only ones who get a pension for life are the Pres and Vice Pres. No one else the same is applicable for medical ins. All gov employees, senators Congressmen etc etc have to pay for their medical coverage and pensions which have to be vested before they can collect a dime.
Having said that, if you vote for any Republican you are guaranteeing more of the same negative legislation that has been aparrent for the past 3-1/2 years. Your choice.
Florida's republican governor
If you were doing that governor ( which you're not ), maybe then you'd have an argument.
WARNING: GOP HYPOCRITE ALERT
The governor of Florida doesn't want the federal government telling him what to do when it comes to meeting the needs of his citizens, yet fully supports the "Ryan Budget".
Map #1; political map, #2; education map.
1, http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/ecalculator#?batt...
2, http://www.edgetech-us.com/map/EduLvls.htm
Why are the poorest states Republican states?
Why do Republicans want to take away education funding?
Why do the uneducated states vote Republican?
The only way you people in Republican controlled states are
ever going to get out of poverty and get educated is to stop voting Republican.
The maps don't lie people, it's really that simple.
The state's opt-out options should have been tossed.
The PROBLEM is GREEDY hospitals and doctors and INSURANCE companies!!
The solution is simple! Take out the PROBLEM.
1. Regulate the amount all of them can charge!! There is absolutely NO EXCUSE for any of them to charge the amounts they charge!
2. Instead of forcing people to pay insurance companies, force everyone to contribute 1.5% of their income- regardless of its source- to one giant pool of money, INDEPENDENT from the hands of the federal government, to be used to REIMBURSE patients for their medical expenses based on a percentage with each payment. The more you have to go to the doctor the less you have to pay to do so.
And don't tell me it doesn't work because other countries with national health care do it and it works just fine. Australia is a PRIME EXAMPLE of how very well it works!
National Health Care does not mean forcing an entire nation to do business with one PRIVATE industry. Get rid of the GREED in the industry and our "health care crisis" will be over, once and for all!