[Vision2020] Health care {insurance} reform passed

[Andreas Schou]

> Look at FY08 Medicaid spending in Idaho... $369,000,000 for around 220,000
> residents or around $1670 per person.  Under the new law everyone who is
> Medicaid eligible will be required to go on Medicaid.

This isn't true, I suspect, unless some other subsection overrules
this one in a way I don't understand. True, mandate requires all
families to maintain minimum essential coverage.  However, there's an
exemption in Chapter 48(e)(1)(A), which reads as follows:

"IN GENERAL- Any applicable individual for any month if the applicable
individual’s required contribution (determined on an annual basis) for
coverage for the month exceeds 8 percent of such individual’s
household income for the taxable year described in section
1412(b)(1)(B) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. For
purposes of applying this subparagraph, the taxpayer’s household
income shall be increased by any exclusion from gross income for any
portion of the required contribution made through a salary reduction
arrangement."

I'll admit that there's a possibility that at some point in the
future, that could become a problem. If the yearly cost of "minimum
essential coverage"  dropped below 8% of 133% of the poverty line, or
around $1,760 in hypothetical 2014-bucks for Donovan's two-person
family, then a Medicaid-eligible family would be required to go to the
private market to find insurance. However, that would solve more
problems than it created.

> Then add in that Medicaid sucks, you have no real choice of doctors, they
> decide your treatment plans and options, they can deny "expensive"
> medications, many states drug test those who receive Medicaid, other add in
> the insult of throwing in various child protective service requirements.

Medicaid isn't great. It does, however, receive higher marks for
satisfaction than America's private insurance market. See here, for
instance:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/mp_20090629_2600.php

> Have any of you actually read the new law?

I'm not accusing you of anything, Chris, but it doesn't look like
you've read it either*.

-- ACS

* I haven't read the whole thing not only because it's long, but
because it's got a lot of moving parts; cross-referencing 2000 pages
worth of legalese is roughly impossible, even for a specialist. I
suspect you can get a better sense of it from the chairman's draft and
summaries than by reading the actual text itself. However, if you do
actually want to subject yourself to the whole thing, you can find it
here:

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3590/text?version=enr&nid=t0:enr:1727