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In Texas, a surprising Perry plan for Medicaid reform (Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!)
Washington Post ^ | November 19, 2011 | Sarah Kliff

Posted on 11/19/2011 12:17:32 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife

It’s a perennial complaint from Texas Gov. Rick Perry: The federal government places far too many restrictions on how states can run Medicaid, the entitlement program that provides health care to low-income Americans. “We know for a fact that, given that freedom, the states can do a better job of delivering health care,” Perry said in a Republican debate last month. He’s endorsed turning the entitlement program into a block grant and flirted with having Texas drop out of it altogether.

But back in Texas, Perry is actually pursuing a highly technocratic and pragmatic attempt at Medicaid reform that doesn’t much resemble the policy he’s floated in his presidential run. He is currently negotiating a waiver with the Obama administration that would net the state increased Medicaid funding if providers could hit certain performance metrics agreed to by the federal government. It’s an approach that has pleased just about everyone involved, from Medicaid advocates to major hospitals.

“As an advocate, if this is done reasonably well, it could be requiring more from hospitals for what they’re doing,” says Anne Dunkelberg of the Center for Public Policy Priorities. “It wouldn’t just be a cash cow. Hospitals would have to deliver care to the uninsured and have to participate in some payment and delivery reforms.

[SNIP]

......But from hospitals to Medicaid advocates, there’s a surprisingly high level of agreement on what the waiver would do: bring in more Medicaid dollars to Texas. As for Perry, it shows a political side rarely seen in his presidential debate performances: pragmatic and technocratic, a leader who can craft a deal that brings together just about every disparate health-care interest in the Lone Star State.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Government; Health/Medicine; Politics
KEYWORDS: amnesty; executive; healthcare; heartless; larazarick; medicaid; openborders; perr2012; perry2012; rino; romneyperry2012; toast
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To: bigheadfred

Don’t use so such language w her


41 posted on 11/19/2011 2:58:02 PM PST by dennisw (I heard the old man laughing What good is a used up world and how could it be worth having-Sting)
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To: edpc

I, too, am self-pay, and I too spend far less.

But one major surgery or serious accident and you’ll find yourself headed for Chapter 11... as we did. It wiped us out completely.

I wish it were possible to buy insurance for major medical only. I’d rather pay in cash for routine care. But if you are self-employed, have any kind of pre-existing condition and/or are over forty, you can forget it. No insurer will touch you.

See you at the county emergency ward. Hope your Spanish hasn’t gotten rusty.


42 posted on 11/19/2011 3:35:25 PM PST by Space Patrol Hoppa
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To: edpc

And you have probably received better care. Most doctors will negotiate a fee for office visits - within reason - if paid in cash or by check. Saves them and their staff a whole lot of time and, therefore, money if they don’t have to deal with the insurance hassle.


43 posted on 11/19/2011 4:05:38 PM PST by Grams A (The Sun will rise in the East in the morning and God is still on his throne.)
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To: dennisw

You can support a loser go ahead. Don’t come crawling to me when he places last in Iowa. Well MAYBE 6th. HE will DEFINITELY not be in the top 4 for sure.


44 posted on 11/19/2011 4:05:53 PM PST by napscoordinator
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Comment #45 Removed by Moderator

To: Space Patrol Hoppa

That is so true. 1000%.

Thank God for Jesus the Christ.

Without that, the number of dead would be numberless.


46 posted on 11/19/2011 4:17:31 PM PST by bigheadfred (wogga wogga)
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To: napscoordinator

Too bad he didn’t think about running around 2009 and implementing some of these ideas even then would have helped.


The MSM poisoned the well for any republican with their anti-war drumming and chanting. Especially one from Texas.

The commies spent 20 years grooming (and disappearing) zero, and instructed the LSM to 100% shut up and take it.

This is why Perry had to lay low, let the ‘can’t debate’ meme take hold, to keep the bullets off him while he got out and talked to the states.

He will either pull it off or he won’t. At least keep an ope n mind as to his targets, and how those targets became his targets.


47 posted on 11/19/2011 6:26:49 PM PST by txhurl
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To: Cincinatus' Wife; dennisw; bigheadfred

Excellent post, CW! I like what Gov. Perry is doing. Get the Fed out of our lives as much as possible. Return power to the states and the people.


48 posted on 11/19/2011 6:58:34 PM PST by smoothsailing
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To: Quicksilver

Opportunity zones? Are those like the special economic zones of China and North Korea... where the rules prohibiting economic development are not in effect?

And if they are, how could *ANYONE* say that doing something like this would be remotely conservative?

America is the land of opportunity... not just certain special areas of it, for G-d’s sake!!!

So those ‘special rules’ that the opportunity zones would get should be the standard law of the land.


49 posted on 11/19/2011 8:52:31 PM PST by gogogodzilla (Live free or die!)
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