Their was a State Senator in a midwest state that proposed this in his state but his RINO governator finally got one more swamp vote R to break his stalemate. You see he wanted to combine HSA's and Direct Primary Care for Medicade and projected savings could have been as high as 60%. So what was 20 grand to take care of a family of 4 would have been 8k if my math is correct, that is a savings of $12,000.
Major Insurer with a four letter abreviation told all those in office, you go forward with this you get no money to run. Nevermind the swamp in DC it is every friggen statehouse.
When will these fartknockers learn, leave me alone, don't touch my stuff and stop screwing me.
This is a simple counter to make states like California, which wants to use Medicaid to pay for illegals health care, put up or shut up.
Medicaid is partially funded by categorical grants. Funds are given in the form of a formula grant to each state. Problem is block grants are chunks of money given to states by the federal government with few or no strings attached. The states are given wide discretion on how they can use the money. So in recent years, the ear marking of funds has been twisted for each state to use as they please for their own purposes or re-election fodder.
And it can underfund itself by use and too much need. Perhaps the most well-known block grant (and the one Paul Ryan wants to use as a model for other programs) is TANF. The law converted a cash assistance program known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) into a block grant now known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Since the funding is set at a fixed dollar amount, it has helped fewer and fewer families over the yearsdown from supporting two-thirds of eligible families in 1996 to just one-quarter of eligible families today. So the question can come out, is there enough money or where is it going?
Other significant block grants include the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG), the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) and the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG). Ironically, these programs have long been targets for elimination by conservatives, who claim theyre not accountable enough. And they are without earmarking and allowing the liberals to borrow from Peter to pay Paul as has been their practice for over 50 year starting in the early 1960s. So the problem is not near new.
rwood
Most, if not all states have some form of Medicaid Estate Reclamation law. They just seldom (if ever) use it. Expanded Medicaid swelled the ranks of Medicaid recipients without regard to worth, only income. The states do NOT want the block grants because they KNOW the money will be spent elsewhere and they don’t want to face voter wrath when they are forced to implement Estate Reclamation.