Working Poor Losing Obamacare as States Resist Medicaid

[Purveyor]

By Alex Wayne and David Mildenberg - Jun 25, 2013

Rose Ruiz collects $8 an hour cooking, cleaning, checking the oxygen tanks and changing the diapers for a 67-year-old diabetic confined to a studio apartment on the south side of Austin, Texas.

Ruiz, a home health aide to Medicaid patients, has no medical insurance herself. Her best shot at getting access to doctors and medicines for her own needs was through President Barack Obama’s expansion of the federal-state Medicaid programs.

That hope was scuttled for Ruiz and thousands of other health-care workers across Texas when the state opted out of the Medicaid expansion earlier this month. Texas has the highest rate of uninsured people in the U.S.

“The politicians don’t know where I’m coming from, they don’t walk in my shoes,” said Shantelle Williams, a home aide who makes the U.S. minimum wage of $7.25 an hour tending to patients just south of Dallas. “That decision was for them, it wasn’t for me.”

Expansion of Medicaid eligibility was intended to provide coverage for the working poor, those with incomes barely exceeding the poverty line yet low enough that they would struggle to make premium payments on insurance bought through the new exchanges set to open Oct. 1. Though last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling upheld Obama’s 2010 Affordable Care Act, it also let states choose not to expand Medicaid.

more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-25/working-poor-losing-obamacare-as-states-resist-medicaid.html

[SummerSnow]

1. America America.. smh

[historylovr]

2. K & R.

[L0oniX]

3. Florida is the same way.

[leftstreet]

4. But, but Obama said his healthcare was 'universal' !!

Wait, what?

[starroute]

9. Thank the Suipreme Court for letting states opt out

The 5-4 majority, dismantling America one bedrock principle at a time.

[cbdo2007]

5. she should move to a state where she would be covered by medicaid.

If everyone did that, the state would change their laws because they would lose everyone willing to do her job.

That's the problem with the US nowadays is that people won't make the changes that actually cause change. They send emails and complain on message boards, but 100 years ago they forced change by making change happen. Same reason unions aren't as effective as they used to be, not enough people willing to put their necks on the line to force change.

[leftstreet]

6. Is this satire?

[Dragonfli]

7. All she has to do is cash her last min wage check to fund an interstate move - easy peezy

Everyone knows how cheap it is to rent a new place out of State, 50 bucks should cover first and last months rent as well as security deposit. A moving truck or van to transport oneself and one's possessions would be about another fifty bucks. If you only eat grass growing on the side of the road all the way there why you wouldn't have any food expenses for the trip at all! The vehicle can't eat the grass however so you still would need about 50 bucks worth of gas. That should leave you with several hundred dollars to turn on all your utilities and eat until you land that new min wage job.

Don't these suckers know how cheap interstate relocation is and how generous ones min wage check is? If they aren't leaving the state it must be due to the laziness of people that have it too easy to get off the couch and just do it!

[srican69]

8. and once everyone does that .... who is going to give them jobs when they land there?