Word: medicaid
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
With Medicare, Medicaid and HMO reimbursements falling and malpractice premiums steadily rising, Sosenko's income has dropped 40% over the past five years, to about $200,000 last year. That might sound like a lot, until you consider the 13 years he studied after high school, the debts he built up, the nights and weekends he works. As his colleague Cohan says, with only a little exaggeration, "Our income is completely controlled by the government, but we have no control on our expenses." Both men are bracing for a potentially bigger pay cut. Sosenko has put off indefinitely any major...
...next problem the feds could help states with is Medicaid. The program is the fastest growing financial burden for states, with medical costs skyrocketing, particularly for prescription drugs. Most of the Democratic candidates have devised plans to try to cover people without health insurance, but none have looked at helping Medicaid. For a decade now, while Congress and the White House have been stalling on this issue, the states have been using Medicaid in innovative ways to expand coverage, increasing the number of citizens eligible for the program. But just when more people need it, 49 state governments have...
...raise. "I envy his position of being able to come to Little Rock and preach tax cuts while I preach a tax increase," Huckabee told TIME. "He has a tool that I do not have, called deficit spending, and can shift--or at least not fix--the Medicaid issue, which is causing most of my heartburn." Medicaid costs in Arkansas have risen from $1.2 billion a decade ago to $2 billion, and Huckabee, like Governors everywhere else, wants Washington to start shouldering more of the burden...
...Bradley wants to replace the outright exemption with a grandfather clause that would allow any Medicaid patient who's already on a mental health drug to continue getting it whether it's included on the list or not. Other provisions would ensure access to psychotropic drugs in emergencies while authorization was sought. Committee and floor votes are scheduled this week. Projected savings from the preferred drug list are $20 million per year, with about $5 million of that coming from mental health drugs if the exemption is removed...
...drug industry argues that Medicaid patients are being treated unfairly. "It really is inappropriate to balance your budget on the backs of poor and disabled Medicaid patients with restricted drug lists," said Jeff Trewhitt, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association. And a new Kaiser Family Foundation study finds that not all state preferred drug lists are created equal: Beneficiaries are most satisfied in states that have streamlined prior authorization processes, so they can get their medications quickly, and drug lists that are drawn up in consultation with pharmacists and physicians...