One in Six Americans is Now on Medicaid

Daily Finance ^ | 8/30/2010 | Melly Alazraki

[katiedidit1]

A record one in six Americans is on Medicaid, the government's health program for the poor, according to USA Today. And Medicaid is just one of several government anti-poverty programs that have seen large increases in caseloads and in costs.

Millions of Americans lost their jobs during the recession, and large numbers of those have lost their employee-sponsored health insurance, too. COBRA subsidies notwithstanding, those job losses have cost most the ability to pay for private health insurance as well.

So it's perhaps unsurprising that more than 50 million Americans are now on Medicaid, up by at least 7 million people, or 17% since the recession began in December 2007, USA Today's research shows. Also not surprising is the fact that the federal government's outlays on Medicaid jumped 36% in the past two years to $273 billion.

See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/axtFS4

[ldish]

this has been the plan all along

[driftdiver]

“Especially considering less than 50% of U.S. “taxpayers” actually pay any taxes. “

And 90%+ of the taxes paid come from about 3% of the people.

[ArmstedFragg]

I suspect a lot of that increase is seniors who have exhausted their savings on nursing home expenses. When my dad went into a nursing home, they handed us a Medicaid application. We explained that he had the resources to fund his own care and wouldn’t need to fall back on the Government. They smiled, and smugly said, “he will”.

[M. Espinola]

A number of Federal and State supervisory-level bureaucrats controlling billions in Medicaid & Medicare funds are involved in what amounts to racketeering, in terms of the amount of insider theft of this enormous source of tax-generated funding.

The vast majority of crooked Fed & State bureaucrats are usually very 'liberal', pushing the totalitarian agenda of Obamaism

The GOP House leadership should demand outside-audits of each and every agency dealing with Medicare and Medicaid funds.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

Can that be correct? Holy crow. Does it include Seniors on Medicare?

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Nope...does not include seniors on Medicare....Medicare and Medicaid are totally different programs....Medicare is actually a seperate deduction from your paycheck...Medicaid is directly funded through the regular tax system

[oblomov]

No, one may be both on Medicare and Medicaid. These so-called “dual eligibles” comprise about 20% of the Medicare beneficiary population.