Health Insurance/Medicaid Expansion 2014
 

I posted earlier about this subject. My insurance was cancelled because my group (my partner and I were covered by BC/BS under our farm business) no longer qualified? Our premiums were around 900.00 per month. My agent advised we needed to submit our information to the Health Care.Gov site. I did and we were accessed Medicaid eligible? I called the 800 number, same outcome. E-mail from the health care site said we would be contacted by our local DHHR. It didn't happen so I called. We were given an appointment with a medical assistant specialist (local DHHR employees are not up to date on the new laws). We were advised there are no asset/resource limits as there is if you were to need nursing care. Income is based on modified adjusted income. I verified this at www.hca.wa.gov/hcr/me/Pages/index/index.aspx. Was still skeptical as we own a small farm, two vehicles (no debt), modest savings. We retired from retail this year. Our income is from a note held on the sold store and a property we sold. Our adjusted gross income is from interest only. This puts us below the poverty level for monthly income. IF we had to pay our insurance premiums (1400 per month without our "group") it would now be almost half our total income per month. I post this because it is now open season for health care and I don't think folks know what may be available to them. We are the only advanced country in the world that does not offer health care to everyone. Check your status now at healthcare.gov.

And we are the only country that has Our Constitution, and should be followed by one and all, especially the government and president of the United States of America. Our government was set up to never be a give all to everyone, it was set up to make sure people could improve themselves without any interference from government and that includes any handouts called healthcare.

I don't think folks know what may be available to them.

I'd just as soon they didn't find out. I don't have a farm, two vehicles, or much of a savings account, though I reckon I'll be paying for it.

maddy, have you been self-employed for the last 25 plus years and paid for your health insurance? In that time I have paid over a quarter of a MILLION dollars for health insurance. Arabian Knight I worked my way thru college tooth and nail and have never had a "hand out" I have paid taxes for over 40 years. Are you going to forego your retirement benefits(government paid) at age 62? Same difference.

This was going the way of all the other health care arguments and snotty comments so I moved it.

My personal feeling is the system is broke, Medical coverage should be like all other services you contract with a provider, just like you do with cellphone service, or electric service. This way there is no middleman. The whole idea of insurance companies creates a middleman who sucks up money that should go to the provider. My Idea is free market, hospitals set up a membership, contract with doctors and you get health care anytime you need it by paying directly to them on a weekly or monthly basis, depending on how your paid. They get a steady income, you get health care when ever needed since you are a member. Not a member? Then you get billed and you are responsible for it. Out of town? Cell-companies had roaming agreements so why not hospitals, I figure give the providers a free hand and let them work it out just like the cell-companies did. Hospitals will then be competing for your membership dollars, and you can go to whoever offers the best deal for your needs. Costs would come down, hospitals would figure out that keeping you healthy is more profitable than waiting for you to get sick and then make money off of you. Competition creates lower costs and better service. Government should no way be involved, anything they do just makes a bigger mess.

If you accept medicAID, then upon your death the government gets to swoop in and take stuff to pay for what it gave you. In other words, if you have a first born child, the government takes it (or what it would inherit).

you can delete my account Admin. I posted this because a couple with 16k income per year posted here and were having trouble with health care bills. They could benefit from this information. I have a BS in veterinarian sciences with years of animal husbandry experience. I milk dairy goats, jersey cows, have chickens for eggs and meat and raise a large garden. Isn't this what this site is all about? A few negative comments should not get a post moved.

Health Insurance/Medicaid Expansion 2014
 

"In other words, if you have a first born child, the government takes it (or what it would inherit)."

Hey, if he is worth his powder, he can grab himself by his bootstraps and lift himself up. You wouldn't want him taking handouts now, would you?

In some cases, where offspring are greedy or uncaring, that could be a very legitimate feeling. I'm somewhat neutral on the whole thing for others. I personally would rather not accept bait with a hook in it.

Harry, it is now different. It shouldn't be called Medicaid because it is not. you are thinking of Medicaid as it refers to nursing home requirements. For medical insurance assets are no longer adjusted for. To get nursing care you could keep your house, one car and have 2k in the bank, at death your assets would go to the government. This is does not apply to health insurance.

Medicaid clawback varies by state. In most states it's only done for long term care, but some states do more. If you're on Medicaid you should learn about the Medicaid clawback laws for your particular state.

This is for WI
Wisconsin’s ForwardHealth Medicaid plans for elderly, blind or disabled provide health care for those who are:

Age 65 or older, blind or disabled,

With family income at or below the monthly program limit, and

Who are United States citizens or legal immigrants.

The Medicaid plan you are enrolled in depends on your income, assets, and type of care you need.
And for some disabled folks that can work a few hours a week it raises the ASSET only level not the income.
I am just below the income level so I can get Medicaid but I have to work a few hours each week in order to raise the ASSET level. Which is called MAPP Which you Buy Into the program,.
If not the asset level is under 2,000. That even includes life insurance policies, if it is Whole Life or Term Life. LOL
I am also on Medicare at the same time.

That's nice -for YOU. Say "thank you" to us.
How many of these cases like yours do you think there are? How long b/4 the cart is way too full & us who pull it cannot anymore?

DH lost his ins end of '13. AND he LIKED his ins! However it coulda been replaced by a plan nearly twice the cost w/higher premiums. AND he DOES NOT like the plan. Gives him free maternity care & free B.C. tho.

Oh, NO IT IS NOT.

Oh, Hon, just wait.
:)

This debate about obamacare, and Medicaid expansion is part of obamacare, has gone around the same track so many times, it's worn a rut 6 feet deep.

It comes down to those who get the freebie, even though they have more resources than those who don't qualify, love it, while those who pay for, both in money and lost benefits, and have no access to the freebies,hate it.

This shows the stupidity of a government picking and choosing which of their citizens get access to a program while expecting those who don't pay for it. There is a world of difference between a program where all pay something, like Medicare, and get something, even if at a lower return, like Social Security, and one in which those who never pay get all the benefit.

The only excuse for this previously has been dire need but this program eliminated that by actually arranging that a person with huge resources can get benefit without paying for it ever, while someone with little or no resources but who works and pays taxes does not. It pays the benefiting person to dismiss the complaints of the non-benefiting person, and thus these continuing arguments.

Oh yeah. Vicker, that comment almost earned you the gold star award.

Bill, thank you for starting this thread. I'm just across the line here in SWPA. I signed up for ACA insurance last year. Decided to check to see what other policies might be available for next year. Went through the rigamarole and was told I was eligible for Medicaid, too, based on my income. I didn't think I'd qualify, as I couldn't believe it wouldn't be means-tested. Like you, I hold a contract for deed, have property, savings, etc.

I'll probably opt to continue with my present insurance as the premium is very low thanks to subsidies. But it's very interesting to find out I might still be eligible for Medicaid. IMO, Medicaid ought to be for the truly needy, not for those of us who have significant resources at our disposal. Like you, I have worked all my life, been self-sufficient, and never expected to be anything but. But I guess if the government wants to pay my bills, well, who am I to stop it?! :facepalm:

chances are if you have been paying property taxes, you have been paying into Medcaid and Medicare.
40% of all my property taxes goes towards Medicaid and medicare.

If you exclude people because of their assets, then one illness wipes them out and now they qualify . What is the point, the insurance companies would now have those assets instead of those who earned them!
I thought you guys did not like anyone come and take away your money?
Is this any different than taxes? How?

I can't help but wonder how many people made these same arguments against public education when it first got started…

"If I want to educate my kids I can pay for it myself, thanks!"
"People who don't want to pay for private education just want freebies!"

None of your property taxes go to either. Medicare is funded through payroll taxes and Medicaid I through income taxes, both federal and state.
The point is that I prefer to keep as much of my money as possible to take care of my own needs as I see fit. Any money that is taken way from me to pay someone to keep them from losing assets I don't have myself is taking any chance I have of accumulating those same assets away from me and giving nothing in return.

Too many pigs and not enough teats ! What happens then ? Since this is a homesteading site most should know the answer. There will be some on here that just don't get it !:facepalm: The ones that dont probably get paid to be here.......

They probably did. But then they actually did get something even if they had no children. They got education themselves and access to other's educated services.
This, on the other hand, is all out go for me and no possible access to it. That is more like theft than social accommodation. Just legal theft.

Public education didn't start like that. It was a true grass-roots groundswell in the U.S. A community would work together to build a small school, and then hire (generally) a young woman to teach the children. She was paid chump change, and lodging and board was provided by one of the members of the community. If she managed to find a beau during the extremely limited time she had as free time, she was often fired.

As the wages for teachers got a little more competitive, some communities struggled with the financial burden. Enter Horace Mann and the idea of a standard of education (the ORIGINAL common core).

FWIW, my mother was a schoolteacher in a one room school for a while.

Up to a 12th grade education for the general populace is a beneficial, social accommodation.
Basic health care for the general populace is legal theft.


I honestly can not understand the logic in this argument. :shrug:

I taught in a one-room country school for a few years, too, Harry. :) K-8, about a dozen kids each year.
(For that matter, my school is still in operation)

However, what you've described is just how it was done in some rural areas, not the whole of American public education.
Here's a basic read on the timeline of public education: https://www.raceforward.org/research...c-education-us
(Interestingly, much like health coverage, in many places it started with just "poor" kids)

Because it is a two step chain of thought. 1) I get the benefit of public education at some point. 2) Since someone forked out money for my access to it and I used it, I am willing to pay it forward.

And the other 1) I never got and will never get any benefit from obamacare subsidies. 2) since I never benefit, I see no reason to pay so someone else can receive for free what I paid for myself for decades.

Only willful refusal to look can keep someone from not seeing the difference.

Public school is the same here, the school district gets tax money every year and my kids went to private school. It was cheaper for private school than what was extorted from me through taxes that I had no choice but to pay. Same for home school, you still have to pay school taxes through your taxes. Same for library, my family has never used that either, same for cemetery, no family member is buried there. The school district here when I was a kid was supported by the families that had kids there. My nephews went to the school for 2 years until the big town district took over, my older brother was bussed to town for 1st grade. The country families got together and kept 1 larger country school 4 miles away, open and we went there for 4 years, by that time it had changed and we had to go 5th through high school in town. Many families started a small school of their own again but my parents couldn't afford the taxes and the cost of the little school so we went to public school in town. The bus ride was an hour each way so we had to do chores after dark when we got home from school. Mom made us go to high school or we would have left school at 8th grade. I went 1/2 way through 11th grade, leaving at sheep shearing time, never went back....James

Maybe your property taxes do not pay into Medicaid but don't assume I do not know what I am paying for!

Medicare is a federal programs , paid for by federal tax on income. You pay the tax on every pay check. Medicaid varies from state to state to a degree, paid by a combination of federal and state money.

Post of the decade award.

Socialistic minded people rarely can understand.

How about the gov't decides we all have to buy car/truck ins. All of us. Well, maybe you would be onboard for that.

You own a vehicle. You buy insurance.
You own a body, you buy health care.

Not everyone has a vehicle, hence you're not likely to get agreement on universal auto. But as far as I can tell, everyone still has a body they need to take care of… :shrug:

Interesting point.
The same could be said for millions of people and the ACA…

Yes it is- some millions did make out on this. But 10 times that number have lost insurance they wanted and everyone still paying taxes for what they don't receive are even more.

In other words, like has been said so many times, those that get freebies love them, those that don't get it yet pay for it, hate it. And there are a whooe lot more of the latter than the former. It is just that simple.

Under obamacare's medicaid expansion, it is all covered by Federal taxes, not property taxes.

Health Insurance/Medicaid Expansion 2014
 

Can you post an article or something that supports this with actual facts? Because what I can find says you're WAY off the mark with this.


And people like me? That make enough we qualify for $7! lol worth of a subsidy but are paying plenty in taxes...
Where do we fit in your stereotype?

At the outer edge. The average subsidy calaculated by obamacare friendlies is about $2800 plus. If you add in Medicare expansion, the total is well over $5000 per person.

in fact you drag the average subsidy down.

Actually, Jilly is partially correct. Apparently in NY (imagine that!), part of their property taxes are used to help fund the state Medicaid program.

However she is wrong about her property taxes paying for Medicare, which is strictly a federal income tax.