Posted on 11/01/2022 6:14:25 AM PDT by karpov
The latest front in the Biden administration’s crusade to bypass the congressional appropriations process and expand the welfare state comes in the form of the medicalization of everyday life through Medicaid coverage of “health-related social needs.”
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently approved three section 1115 demonstration initiatives that allow Oregon, Massachusetts and Arizona to use Medicaid funds to pay nonmedical expenses such as housing supports (rent, relocation expenses, furniture), meals, air conditioning and air purifiers “during climate emergencies” and transportation services.
CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure argues such measures are needed “to address the root social causes of health concerns, like lack of access to nutritious food and housing insecurity.”
This is an unnecessary and potentially enormous expansion of Medicaid, the government-funded health program for low-income families, children and the disabled — and, in Medicaid expansion states, low-income adults. Medicaid covers roughly one in four Americans. It is financed partly by the federal government (about two-thirds on average) and partly by the individual states. States have leeway in spending their portion, but strict rules limit how they can use the federal chunk.
Before these recent approvals, adding nonmedical services to the program could have been considered fraud, waste and abuse. But section 1115 waivers allow state Medicaid programs to create demonstration projects that use federal Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program funds in ways federal rules would not otherwise permit.
Of course, once Medicaid spending can be used for housing and food, there’s no logical stopping point. Clothing, heating fuel, gasoline, phones and computers could all arguably be linked to Medicaid recipients’ health and well-being.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Free beach-front homes in Florida for everyone in the country! C’mon!
Destroying the social security lockbox before our eyes.
Oh! Where is Saint Gore to protect us when we all need him.
Spend money we do not have.
If it passes...the good news is, it won’t last very long.
This is likely quietly going on in all similar govt programs - here in the Midwest, I know someone on disability who says she gets sent extra money she didn’t ask for from her “insurance.”
She pays nothing for healthcare, OTC meds, utilities, groceries, medical appointment transport, or housing. She buys steak, cigs, unlimited candy (which is pricy) and who knows what else.
There was no logical stopping point with "Med-"
Another blatant attempt to buy votes.
EVERYTIME the Fed raises rates to try and curb inflation, Biden's socialists find another way to throw away our money and counter it.
The end result of all this is obvious. Poverty for all.
He is taking more and more money from those who work and is giving it to those who don’t work but vote democrat.
He is punishing the hard working, productive people.
The same people who he is punishing are the people he is replacing through immigration and discrimination. There are fewer and fewer of them.
He is increasing the number of non-working unproductive individuals who live happily off the other group’s hard work.
More takers, fewer producers. End result, everybody is poor. (Except the ruling elite which gets everything it wants no matter what.)
We really are a banana republic.
Welcome to socialism 101 wait until you see what else comes down the pike.
WHO has the guts to challenge this with a serious lawsuit???
Rand Paul might be a good one to do so.
I will bet 2 ice cream bars that access to drugs is NOT a problem for these persons.
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