Saturday, February 20, 2010
Americans on Medicaid are caught between the federal government, which wants to add 15 million more people to the medical insurance program, and state governments that can’t afford coverage for existing patients. With budget deficits ballooning, state officials are cutting services and forcing doctors to drop Medicaid patients.
Medicaid patients are increasingly losing coverage for “optional benefits,” such as dental and vision care, including eyeglasses and dentures, as well as other essentials like adult day care. That’s the case in Nevada, where Republican Governor Jim Gibbons, trying to close an $881 million budget gap, proposed saving $829,304 by cutting the monthly allocation of diapers to incontinent adults from 300 to 186.
Other governors are trying to avoid or minimize Medicaid cuts by hiking the tax on tobacco products. But getting conservative lawmakers to go along with a tax increase in an election year could prove difficult.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
States Consider Medicaid Cuts as Use Grows (by Kevin Sack and Robert Pear, New York Times)
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