Doctors Staying in Medicaid a ‘Huge Concern’ for Down Syndrome Community
The society has no position on Medicaid expansion and no sense of how the choice of some states to opt-out might affect the disabled.
“We don’t have sense about positive or negative impact that may have on families yet,” Weir said, “though we are closely monitoring that.”
Weir points to current initiatives in Congress that could be moved through to help the Down syndrome population, including the ABLE Act that would provide individuals with disabilities flexible savings tools such as college savings accounts, health savings accounts, and individual retirement accounts. It includes a Medicaid pay-back provision for when the beneficiary passes away.
“When Cole was born, we were advised not to put any assets in his name because it would penalize him if he needed to qualify for a government program someday,” McMorris Rodgers wrote in The Hill last week. “Millions of others parents face the same impediment: they want to expand their children’s options without jeopardizing their access to benefits. We must get rid of federal policies that limit those with disabilities and make them dependent on the government.”
Weir notes that the ABLE Act, which has 172 bipartisan co-sponsors in the House and 22 in the Senate, helps address the aging-caregiver issue particularly given the rate of those with Down syndrome developing Alzheimer’s later in life.
Helping families save money for a life of care, Weir said, “makes people with Down syndrome less reliant on entitlement programs.”
McMorris Rodgers is also the sponsor of two bipartisan bills to “expand and intensify” National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention research into Trisomy 21.
Concerns about ObamaCare and the disabled have been brought up in different areas since the law went into effect.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) charged on the presidential nomination campaign trail that ObamaCare could lead to more abortions of the disabled by requiring amniocentesis. Scott Gottlieb, a former senior official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the Bush administration, warned that “dual-eligible” disabled seniors who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid will be “herded” into Medicaid and receive lesser care as a result.
For McMorris Rodgers, it’s about not putting a cost-value equation on lives and ensuring that policy reflects that.
“Cole has given me a whole new perspective on being a mother and also a Member of Congress,” McMorris Rodgers said on the House floor to mark World Down Syndrome Day in March. “Cole’s birth has given me a whole new purpose for serving in Congress, and he reminds me every day of the significance and tremendous impact that every person has in this world.”
What’s there to be concerned about? The advocates for Down Syndrome will receive service from obamacare in exact proportion to their ability to stuff the king’s and the criminal bureaucracy’s pockets with cash and cash equivalents, such as votes, higher salaries and robust lifetime pensions for the bureaucrats who will wield life and death power over thier loved ones without any recourse whatsoever. It’s the law, after all.
My recommendation to them is to begin purcasing the services of some Affirmative Action lawyers immediately so they can get the “best advice” available.
Why are tax dollars going towards people with Down syndrome? Hate to sound callous but how is that any business of the government? They should all be off Medicaid or any government welfare. If they are incapable of living without assistance or constant care that’s what families and private charities are for. While Obamacare is awful, complaining that less people would be on the government dole doesn’t seem very conservative. Isn’t the conservative position that we remove government from the system and return medical insurance to a catastrophe based insurance system. You know, like every other type of insurance. That way prices come down and doctors have more interest in taking on more patients. This article is basically arguing that you’re in favor of a different form of socialism and Obama’s socialist program will interfere with your preferred socialism. We don’t want any socialism. The government isn’t our doctor. He isn’t our insurer. He isn’t our financial planner. We can’t get the burden of big government of our backs if we keep begging for more safety nets.
The Congressional Down Syndrome Caucus. It does seem a bit much.
I agree. It does sound a bit much, Unless, of course, you have a child with Downs syndrome.
Everyone here is making strong and valid points. arhooley, King and NC mountain girl, all of
you. But mythbuster brings up a terribly correct point. I don’t have the answer. Hell, I don’t
have ANY answer. But it seems to me that one should err on the side of life (at least) and if
it’s cost that is the concern, maybe we could drop contraceptives as a benefit and divert much
of those funds to children with Downes or CF or other life altering diseases. Just sayin’.
Well, there’s the reality-based rub on all these benefits: we have decided that the most vulnerable among us deserve the protection of the herd, but our policy is not designed to maximize that.
Do you have a problem with that?
I don’t. What I have a problem with is dumbing down need to include “hyperactivity,” ADHD, and a plethora of other non-diseases which, in practice, get in line ahead of real needs to the degree that their falsity frees up their advocates to focus on acquisition, rather than treatment of real consequences.
I watched my brother try to work for 10 years while being dialyzed three times a week until his poor body gave out.
Only then did he apply for disability and found himself three years behind people with the slightest and most made-up conditions, as his health slipped further and he lost physical functions he’d never get back – thanks to the grifters and shysters in line ahead of them.
So, they’re going to hell. That’s clear. Clarity is nice. Meanwhile, what are we going to do about it? The problem is the actual problem with medicaid. Fail to fix it and you’re just whistling in the wind. But it takes judgment to do so. Cold, hard judgment that decides that some people are lying and others aren’t.
Good luck with that. It’s like speaking Croatian in Georgetown. People find it exciting, but to little real effect.
I counseled at a crisis pregnancy center for a few years and was stunned to find out so many young, able-bodied, (and sexually active) women were on Social Security Disability for depression! It left me feeling rather…well…depressed.
I’m with you Tina, but the issue is how can we pay for it, and for care for all the others who are similarly disadvantaged? This is not a trivial challenge.
But why do the other people have to be burdened by act of force for someone else’s children. This isn’t charity. If I don’t pay my taxes men with guns take me off to jail or confiscate my property. Some other family’s problems aren’t my problems. Why should my taxes in any way pay for someone else’s medical visits. Asking other to pay for your child’s medical visits is parasitic. You’r askign for a form of free cheese. Begging for taxpayer dollars. You dress it up as helping those poor, unfortunate souls with Down syndrome. The real unfortunate souls are the taxpayers as long as they are burdened by the problems of others against their will.
Again the answer is to create more freedom. One way to do this is to repeal prescription laws that enrich doctors and force their patients to pay not only for medicine, but also paying large sums of money to obtain “permission” from a doctor to purchase that medicine. Without prescription laws many people would be able to take care of their health needs without involving a doctor. This would of course be good for the people, but doctors wouldn’t like it because a major source of their incomes is dependent upon these laws.
If you want everyone to pay their own way, then it seems you should be for Obamacare, not against it. When people go to the hospital without insurance, those of us with insurance end up paying for them. Seems reasonable to require everyone to have it. My state requires everyone to have auto insurance and police even ask for evidence of it if you are stopped for a traffic violation. Just curious, are those that are so against being required to carry health insurance also sending letters and protesting to their state legislatures about being forced to carry auto insurance? Why don’t they think that law requiring one to buy insurance is wrong?
It does sound a bit much, Unless, of course, you have a child with Downs syndrome.
If life gives you lemons* make a Congressional Caucus.
*and you happen to be in Congress
If I had a choice I’d rather tax money went to her kids than to subsidize the interest on your mortgage. Or pay millionaires to not raise crops.
Or to pay for unjustified wars.
The reason this is a big deal is that Down’s Syndrome patients are actively targeted for genocide. Prenatal testing for incurable conditions serves no purpose other than to target them for extermination.
I said that once upon a time and I was corrected by moms who pointed out that doctors in the delivery room need to know if a disabled baby is on the way. Such foreknowledge can also help parents to prepare for a special-needs baby. If they have existing kids, they need to know their new baby brother or sister is not going to be like other kids.
by the way, you do know Sarah Palin found out about her son’s Down Syndrome through prenatal testing?
Some time down the line, under this healthcare leviathan, women carrying imperfect children will be seen as social pariahs if they don’t abort. i.e. How can they be so selfish as to bring a Down Syndrome child into the world, one whom society has to help for a lifetime?
Let us remember what it is to be human, with all our defects and imperfections.
Parents of children who were born on the very edge of viability are also worried about Obamacare. These children are often placed on Medicare disability soon after birth because because many of them will never live entirely normal lives.
Medicaid pays for a standard 10 min office visit at the internist or family practice doctor around $30, requires the bookkeeper to bill at least twice to get paid, threatens you regularly if you even think of overbilling, and is the group that misses appointments the most, but the first to sue. Afterall the care is free so why not waste it. I am amazed that any doctor can affort to see even 10% of his practice in Medicaid. Medicare is not much better, but a bit.
With O’Care, we will have a computer system with a bureaucrat back in DC telling our doctor that it is normal for people to be blue, don’t order that test, then politely remind them after the treatment is denied that the doctor is responsible for the outcome – ie the rich doctor will be the one sued if anything is the matter. It is cheaper for the doctor to retire now that work for free and lose all his life work. We will be able to keep our doctor, just not be able to see him.
You do this, and it WILL be normal for people to start turning blue, because they’ll resort to colloidal silver treatment when they can’t get their hands on antibiotics.
$30?
Here in NY State, Medicaid pays the doc $12 for a new visit and $6.50 for a follow-up, before the biller take his cut, malpractice eats its portion and His Imperial Highness’ revenuers, theirs. This is the future for everyone on OKare.
IOW, you pay much more to take your dog to the vet, then the government pays a doctor to see a medicaid or medicare patient. Who will go in debt at 200k to become a doctor and do this?
Precisely. And this is intentional because their goal is to force all to labor as a Gov’t serf. The US Public Health Service had h been massively expanded so what the Emperor will do is offer a tuition excusal of, say $25k a year and you serve at His pleasure wherever they ship you off, for $100-125k a year or so. after 15 years, you’re loan is paid off but by then, you’re 40+ and have a lazy Man’s Federal pension vested (whether it’s funded in anything but food stamps remains to be seen) so most won’t leave and will remain Serfs for life.
That’s how the Demokraps Socialize medicine. Teachers and others to follow. Fascism with a smiley face!
Some will do so purely out of a desire to help others, but not nearly enough. Quality will suffer enormously, and the government will attempt to deal with the problem by admitting many more foreign trained MD’s. One of the reason our medical care and technology is better than most is because those who provide it are rewarded with something like a market remuneration (yeah, yeah, I know: managed care). When that ceases completely, and I fear we are headed to just such an era of administered prices, the only providers who will be well paid will be those who game the system. If you want really good medical care then you will have to seek it out somewhere else.
“I think everyone would agree we don’t want to deny anybody coverage because of a disability,” Weir said.
Brilliant. Next up, life insurance without taking age or physical condition into account. After that, actuaries will just be barred from working, altogether, as all they do is “discriminate”. What sort of idiot thinks that “insurance” is supposed to be sold to someone at a cost that is KNOWN to be less than what that person’s coverage will be? Where do people even get this idea?
This is beyond idiotic and is breaking the system for EVERYONE – i.e. destroying private property rights on which all individual liberties are based. Thanks. Your misunderstanding of what insurance is, along with your intentional abuse of empathy for reasons that defy logic and are particularly personal to you, will destroy the private sector and leave nothing for anyone at any price, which you never had any right to do in the first place.
Hmmmm….obesity and inactivity are two of the biggest killers after smoking and drug abuse. Yet I have never had a health insurance company ask me to weigh myself, demonstrate my cardio regiment, nor demonstrate I didn’t smoke prior to giving me rate. Can you restate your actuarial analysis considering the largest predictors of health and medical expense are not part of the majority of application processes? My fat, smoking coworker pays the same rate as me.
My fat, smoking coworker pays the same rate as me.
And he’ll end up costing less than you, since he’ll probably drop off quickly while you’ll live a long life and cost tons of money. Good for you. You get the better deal.
And your smoking coworker pays highway robbery taxes on his taxes, so give me a break with the “he pays the same as I” junk. Further, there are procedures they won’t do on a smoker. Again, good for you.
And your fat worker won’t collect any social security, either, as we all know that smokers all drop dead at 47. So all the money he was gouged for that program will go straight to you and only you. Happy, now?
Did I say anywhere in my post that risks shouldn’t be allowed to be assessed? People who ride motorcycles should pay more for health insurance. They’re clearly higher risks. So what? That still doesn’t mean that it makes any sense to think that insurance should be given without any consideration of what the person WILL KNOW to cost (out of the realm of “likely”, now, but into concrete figures). Tell me, if someone has been diagnosed with a disease that will cost four hundred thousand in care over the next year (as a hypothetical) what is a fair monthly premium that a private company should be able to charge that person? Just give me a round figure. It’s an easy question.
People love to pull at heart strings over charity. Great. But the government is not supposed to be in the business of charity. It doesn’t do it well, to begin with, and that is NOT its purpose. Period. End of story.
Am I cruel and heartless? Do you want a government that protects your rights or do you want a government that is your mother and father and church? There is a place for charity and it is NOT in the government. It certainly is NOT in the federal government. State governments can make those expenditures if they like, but when they go bankrupt, they can’t be bailed out. And government participation as the “charitable” entity tends to raise prices and reduce quality for EVERYONE – those who are receiving the “charity” and everyone else who is left with a broken system that the government has its hands all over.
I meant “taxes on his cigarettes”, obviously. They are insane and beyond any justification, at all. Allegedly, they pay “for the children” … Sure. Just as the $250 billion cigarette settlement of the 1990s disappeared with nothing to show for it but higher cigarette prices.
What did families with Downs Syndrome Children do before medicaid?
They would put them in “institutions” to rot away and die.
And some times the parents were given no choice. I personally met the mother of a Down’s woman I cared for. She had chosen in the 60′s to keep her baby and did so with NO support from anyone but the grocer who would save mushy bananas for the little girl to eat as she was on soft foods. By the time her baby was five she was spent and asked if the institution would take her daughter. She had to go before a panel of doctors and state that if they did not take her child she would set her out in a field to die.
this woman was so heavy with the guilt of doing this that she waited until her daughter was 33 and in a group home before coming to visit.
Families with special needs children/adults need help and not just from the government. You judge a society on how they treat their weakest members and even some of the comments here scare me to death. If all anyone cares about is their pocket book and cushy lifestyle then this country is closer to collapse than we think.
The question that must be asked is whether IPAB will allow the birth of children with disabilities due to the expected burden and costs to society. Remember, IPAB’s decisions and membership has zero checks, balances or corrections.
Most of the comments on this thread are mind-blowing! It is more than obvious that you do not have any experience with a PERSON with Down Syndrome! If you did, your comments would not be so cruel, ugly, and inhumane. BEFORE MEDICAID, individuals with Down Syndrome were usually institutionalized until they withered and died at an early age. . . . until people educated themselves. Because of prenatal testing, which frequently results in false positives (and false negatives), only 10% of unborn children diagnosed before birth are carried to term. That saddens me for the parents because they will never know the joy they miss out on. Though development is delayed, an individual with Downs can contribute and function as a “normal” member of society. As a mother of a child with Down Syndrome, I pity those of you making such terrible generalizations without experiencing the uninhibited joy that children with Down Syndrome view life with. They are full of LOVE for life. I pay for my child’s insurance, and it is difficult because I can’t financially provide him all of the extra therapy and such to keep him a step ahead. Shouldn’t efforts be made to help those who can actually contribute to our society? And yet we sit back watching so many find the loopholes to drain taxpayers while they sit at home with 5 or 6 children who are healthy but don’t want to work.
Alas!
We’ve already seen from the reaction the Great and Good had to Sarah Palin and little Trig that carrying a Down’s Syndrome child to term is clearly an unpardonable sin.
First Obamacare has to collapse of it’s own unworkable weight, then we are expected to tearfully prostrate ourselves before the government and beg for single-payer care. Personally I don’t imagine the intended government-run system will develop its own “Aktion T-4″ programme to rid the Volk of “useless bread-gobblers” and inferior stock for the Greater Good but I do think it will quickly boil down (in easy stages on the slippery slope) to a situation where the severely disabled, chronically ill and old, old can expect the pain pill and the lethal injection as the only treatment offered them.
By that time, you may be sure there will be no one to complain to and no one to sue.
I completely disagree with you. I am a Democrat and the mother of a child with Down syndrome and I think Obamacare will help my child. With it, my child cannot be denied insurance because she has a pre-exisiting condition. She can’t “limit out” if her medical costs reach a certain amount. I believe everyone has the same right to life and should get the chance to be born. Once a child gets that chance, disability or not, he/she should be able to get health care and Obamacare is the only law that I have seen that sees to that. All I hear is that it is bad and I don’t see that and I certainly don’t see a plan for something else. If people want it repealed, tell me what you will put forth in its place. With regard to Medicaid, I hope that any issues affecting it are resolved in case my child needs it when I am 85 and my child is no longer able to live with me or be on my insurance. I don’t think problems that need to be fixed mean the law should be scrapped. The senators and congressmen should actually earn their pay, get together and work out the problems.
Just remember that in Canada land of free health care Down’s people are denied anything beyond basic care because they are not really “viable” members of society.
This health care reform will allow the government to decide who get treatment and who doesn’t.
I don’t see that the government will decide who gets health care and who doesn’t. Why do you think that? Where in the law does requiring someone to have insurance mean the government then decides who gets care. Also, it seems that this law, if anything, requires insurance to cover more ailments, not fewer. I don’t know about yours, but my insurance is very good and it still doesn’t cover certain things my child needs – and the insurance company, not the doctor, is making that call. I agree, we all have to be vigilant in making sure the government works for us, not against us, but I don’t see that this law is against us. It seems to do more to help people than to hurt them.
Also, unfortunately, if the government is paying for your healthcare, as in Medicaid, it does decide what is covered and what isn’t. I am all for making Medicaid cover more. I hope others agree.
I agree!
Somewhere in the bowels of hell, Margret Sanger is cracking a smile…
I am the Younger brother of a Downs Person.. Bobby turned 60 years old this year.
Amazing ! through they years Mom and Dad took care of Bobby without any assistance from any gov’t agency. My Parents didn’t know of any and no one referred them to any if there was One.
Well Mom is 83 years Old and has advanced arthritis in her Joints.. Bobby is in an assistance living center. He does receive Medicaid But Most of it goes to the Center for his living expenses. He has experienced three strokes in the Last four years. So his quality of life is diminishing.
The social worker that He had wanted Mom to sign Bobby over to Be a ward of the state. Why?? so they can have more say in his care ( or no Care) .
Or is it so they can Put him in an institution run by the state and forget about him..
Recently, I was denied insurance to cover funeral expenses because I am too old! Age 82, puts me on the threshold of one foot in the grave. Too OLD to DIE or what?
No offense to all of you who call it ObamaCare, but he didn’t invent nation wide health care so there is no reason to call it Obamacare. This system is currently being used in the United Kingdom and Canada. Two countries similar to ours. Also, there aren’t as many programs for kids with DS as there are for other diseases. I would rather my tax dollars go to help someone in need like this, than to go to some of the trash we support with food stamps and well-fare.