Tennessee becomes 1st state with plan to turn Medicaid into block grant

KMFJD

Lifer
Aug 11, 2005
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Under block grants, first broached during the Reagan administration, the government would instead pay a state a lump sum each year while freeing it from many of Medicaid's rules, including who must be allowed into the program and what health care is covered. Proponents contend the model would save money and let states run the program more efficiently; opponents contend it would strand states and vulnerable residents during economic downturns or as expensive new therapies emerge.

Sounds great, anyone in Tennessee looking forward to this?
 
Nov 8, 2012
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I am all for these experiments in Republican states that I don't plan to live in or even visit.
I think it's going to be a good learning experience.

Sounds great. Let's do a single payer experiment in NY or CA.

Let me know how much you love the taxes.
 

dainthomas

Lifer
Dec 7, 2004
14,635
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Did Kansas turn appreciably Democrat after their disaster of an experiment with taxation? This seems like the same kind of idiocy.

A Dem is governor now. And it's doubtful another large scale tax cut will fly there for a long time.
 
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senseamp

Lifer
Feb 5, 2006
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Sounds great. Let's do a single payer experiment in NY or CA.
Let me know how much you love the taxes.
Private insurance isn't exactly free, you know. Find out your company's COBRA rates it might open your eyes. If that was paid as a tax to fund universal single payer, with government being able to negotiate prices, everyone would be better off except private insurance scams.
 

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
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block grants basically let the state use the money for pretty much anything it wants. much of the spending only has the most cursory lip service to the stated goal and can be used for corrupt purposes (lining donors' pockets). in oklahoma that meant $70 million in welfare money was used for marriage counseling just from one vendor (public strategies). in michigan that meant $100 million dollars in welfare money was spent on tuition grants at colleges, including exclusive private liberal arts schools. in indiana that meant $3.5 million in 2016(7?) spent on "crisis pregnancy centers."
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,125
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Good job, Tennessee! Of course I'm sure they will manage to successfully convince all the Tennesseans screwed over shitty health coverage in the next 5 years that it was all the democrats fault and of course Obama.

lol, this will be disaster.
 
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Nov 8, 2012
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Agreed, let's do it!

I don't think this will mean what you think it means.

Legitimately curious why (with liberals having a boner for Obamacare / Romneycare) why they don't attempt their own self-regulation of single payer for their respective states.

Is there something at the federal level that stops them?
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
73,231
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You can always count on Republican controlled states to serve business rather than the people. How many elections would assholes win if their campaigns weren't massively propaganda funded before elections. Making a profit of the mortality of people is a business model that only works when people are kept out of the loop. You can do anything with people if you can make them fear their own self interests. Just call it socialism, you know, where people look our for their own interests. The problem with the health care industry looking out for its own profits is that those profits are paid by other businesses. The clearer that becomes to business people, the sooner we will have socialized medicine. Business should be voting for Democratic socialists, but their brains have also been disabled by propaganda.
 
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itsmydamnation

Platinum Member
Feb 6, 2011
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Sounds great. Let's do a single payer experiment in NY or CA.

Let me know how much you love the taxes.
How does every other first world nation survive..... O' the horror.......

fuck you guys are shills.


edit: last year my income tax came in at about 29% of my wage. I was also hospitalised for 2 weeks last year, out of pocket cost was 0.
 
Nov 8, 2012
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How does every other first world nation survive..... O' the horror.......

fuck you guys are shills.

They survive on a fuckton of higher taxes on the lower and middle classes - unlike in the US where the bottom half pays $0 in federal income taxes.

They also pay a Value Added consumption based tax - far higher than our state based sales taxes (of which 5 of our states do not have one).

Oh also, those idealistic countries you love to get a hard-on for? They have drastically low corporate income taxes and FAR higher income taxes on individuals.

Womp wooooooooooooooomp
 

itsmydamnation

Platinum Member
Feb 6, 2011
2,914
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They survive on a fuckton of higher taxes on the lower and middle classes - unlike in the US where the bottom half pays $0 in federal income taxes.

They also pay a Value Added consumption based tax - far higher than our state based sales taxes (of which 5 of our states do not have one).

Oh also, those idealistic countries you love to get a hard-on for? They have drastically low corporate income taxes and FAR higher income taxes on individuals.

Womp wooooooooooooooomp
incorrect.

Take Australia ( where i live),

no state based income tax
tax free <18k , sliding tax scale form there ( 19c from 18k to 37k, 32c from 37k to 80k)
10% gst

23px-Flag_of_Australia_%28converted%29.svg.png
Australia
27.8


so how about you get some facts....
keep shilling shill.
 

itsmydamnation

Platinum Member
Feb 6, 2011
2,914
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hows this one for you

look at all those first world countries 1/2 the cost per capita for medial care and almost all have a 100% medical safety net (australia, NZ, UK, canada etc).

SO again i ask you:
How does every other first world nation survive....


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Country2013201420152016
United States8,6169,0369,5079,892
Switzerland6,7947,0967,5367,919
Luxembourg6,6936,8506,8187,463
Norway5,9796,1366,1906,647
Germany4,9615,2005,3535,551
Ireland5,0335,0825,2765,528
Sweden5,0705,1705,2665,488
Netherlands5,3035,3225,2975,385
Austria4,8615,0015,1005,227
Denmark4,7724,9065,0585,205
Belgium4,5054,6564,7784,840
Canada4,4614,5024,6134,753
Australia4,1864,2894,4934,708
France4,3314,4644,5304,600
Japan4,2074,2694,4364,519
Iceland3,7073,8914,1064,376
United Kingdom3,8453,9894,1254,192
Finland3,9203,9353,9934,033
New Zealand3,4023,4963,5453,590
Italy3,2353,2713,3523,391
Spain2,9413,0573,1803,248
Slovenia2,5862,6472,7312,835
Israel2,4232,5952,7132,822
Portugal2,5362,5992,6642,734
Korea2,2522,3962,5352,729
Czech Republic2,3802,4762,4662,544
Greece2,1752,0992,2102,223
Slovak Republic2,1002,0092,0592,150
Hungary1,7761,8211,9132,101
Estonia1,6521,7731,8851,989
 

Sunburn74

Diamond Member
Oct 5, 2009
5,037
2,615
136

Under block grants, first broached during the Reagan administration, the government would instead pay a state a lump sum each year while freeing it from many of Medicaid's rules, including who must be allowed into the program and what health care is covered. Proponents contend the model would save money and let states run the program more efficiently; opponents contend it would strand states and vulnerable residents during economic downturns or as expensive new therapies emerge.

Sounds great, anyone in Tennessee looking forward to this?
Its honestly a mixed bag.
I can't say it makes the state governments more efficient. However what is does is it makes hospitals and clinics be more efficient because if they overspend on a patient then they lose money. However, it also will probably force at least some of these centers to move away from medicaid patients or cherry pick them. In addition, it will limit access to expensive therapies for medicaid patients who need them most likely (ie patients with CF or patients who need cancer therapy) because again centers will have to choose between not being reimbursed fully vs letting the patient die. Block grants basically remove the concept of unlimited healthcare for each patient and instead assigns a fixed dollar amount for each patient in total.

I personally don't think we want to do that. We'd be better off abandoning the sinking ship which is our current healthcare payment and reimbursement system and start over from scratch.