Monday Morning Medicaid Must Reads: September 4th, 2017

Helping you consider differing viewpoints. Before it’s illegal. 

 

Article 1:   Building the Infrastructure of the Affordable Care Act: Hillary Clinton, UnitedHealth Group/Optum, and the Center for American Progress, Katherine Tillman, Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Winter 2015 

Clay’s summary: Wow. This is like a laundry list of the rich and powerful and how they show up under the banner of “health reform” inside the walls of CMS.

Key Passage from the Article

 The ACA is also the legal catalyst for a massive information technology (IT) infrastructure connecting, tracking, and exploiting economic, social, and cultural components of American society. Government departments may now arbitrarily structure thousands of regulations and policies from this poorly written legislation, all of which have an impact on the personal lives of citizens from prenatal exams to hospice.  But who is in charge? 

We have yet to understand the full scope of the ACA. Its execution is in the hands of powerful, interlocking individuals and organizations, many having been involved in designing
“healthcare reform” since the Clinton Administration. A central part of the transformation is compiling and tracking our most sensitive data, from health records and tax returns,
which can now be used in making coercive decisions about our medical care, to help achieve the “progressive” social goals of this elite, powerful group.

Read it here 


Article 2:   The War on Medicaid Is Moving to the States, Greg Kaufmann, 8/31/2017, The Nation

Clay’s summary: #Resist!

Key Passage from the Article

 Waivers are intended for state pilot projects designed to improve health-care coverage for vulnerable populations. But that’s not what conservative governors are pursuing. In Maine, for example, as citizens prepare to vote on a referendum that would force the state to expand Medicaid to 70,000 people, Governor Paul LePage is moving in the opposite direction. His Department of Health and Human Services has requested permission to create a 20-hour-a-week work requirement, impose copays and premiums, and implement a $5,000 asset cap on Medicaid beneficiaries. The result, health-care experts warn, will be that low-income people in Maine will be kicked off the program.

Read it here