Glitch or hidden agenda? ObamaCare gives free health care to millions of middle-class Americans
We’re still finding out what’s in that bill, more than a year after the Democrats passed it.
President Barack Obama’s health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free insurance meant for the poor, a twist government number crunchers say they discovered only after the complex bill was signed.
The change would affect early retirees: A married couple could have an annual income of about $64,000 and still get Medicaid, said officials who make long-range cost estimates for the Health and Human Services department.
Up to 3 million more people could qualify for Medicaid in 2014 as a result of the anomaly. That’s because, in a major change from today, most of their Social Security benefits would no longer be counted as income for determining eligibility. It might be compared to allowing middle-class people to qualify for food stamps.
Medicare chief actuary Richard Foster says the situation keeps him up at night.
“I don’t generally comment on the pros or cons of policy, but that just doesn’t make sense,” Foster said during a question-and-answer session at a recent professional society meeting.
Well, it makes sense if you went into crafting the bill with an agenda to kill off private insurance to force a national move to single payer, government-run health care. And we know from his own words that President Obama believed in that agenda, at least at one time. Democrats now say that this isn’t a glitch at all.
Indeed, administration officials and senior Democratic lawmakers say it’s not a loophole but the result of a well-meaning effort to simplify rules for deciding who will get help with insurance costs under the new health care law. Instead of a hodgepodge of rules, there will be one national policy.
“This simplification will stop people from falling into coverage gaps and may cause some to be newly eligible for Medicaid and others to no longer qualify,” said Brian Cook, spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
And it makes sense, if your aim is to get millions more Americans dependent on government services.
The Democrat Party, aka the Party of Weiners, is the major glitch in America today.
Increasing dependency is the opiate of the ruler.
NONE of the economic factors are limited to a single bill nor a single administration over the past five decades. The ‘qualifying’ formula’s developed and implemented over the past five decades is the problem…not just for adults but for the children of the nation. Both Title I and healthcare programs use formula’s that entitle millions upon millions of adults and their children, government subsidies for school food and healthcare when their incomes are not only over the poverty line but substantially over the poverty line.
The proper initial solution, in my opinion, would be for all government ‘welfare’ programs (including the big three) to be means tested to a legitmate top-end poverty line established by current state-by-state poverty methodology. If one does not live within the legitimate poverty line…you’re not eligible!
If you’re under the age of 65 and eligible for a program by means testing you have only limited benefits for a limited period of time under each classified program unless, classified or reclassified and ‘permanetly’ disabled….period!
Few have any idea how much is spend on childrens dental services that is not necessary and critical and how many folks make well over the poverty line and still receive health care benefits. Likewise, how many parents receive benefits simply because their children qualify over the poverty line, especially, pre/post natal instances. Furthermore, there are few instances in which social security disability benefits should be paid for years or life with so many jobs today being non physical.
If they’re serious, there are billions and trillion over a few years that can be saved without taking from those who such benefits were designed to serve…legitimately aged and infirmed in poverty without the means to change their status.
Remember that the population of early retirees is dominated by municipal workers with some private union members (Autoworkers, Steelworkers,etc.). This is the same group that got the bail-out provision ($5 billion, was it?) to fund their plans’ short-falls pre-2014. In effect what this is doing is shifting the cost for early retirement from the states and localities that (foolishly) granted it to the nation at large. An Illinois teacher retires at 55 with a pension sliding in just under the cap and Texas get to pick up the tab. Are these folks effective looters or what?