PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP: Medicaid changes worry caregivers

[NVMojo]

(Let's see how fast those fundie churches in Amerika jump on the faith-based federal grant trough to show some compassion to help with this issue! HA!!)

June 14, 2006

Some come in with just the clothes on their backs. Their driver's licenses, birth certificates or other forms of identification are either lost in the shuffle from shelter to shelter or forgotten on a park bench.

Despite such hurdles, Linda Lera-Randle El, director of the nonprofit Straight from the Streets program, does her best to match Las Vegas' homeless with federal or state assistance.

Those hurdles, manageable now, might become higher if an addition to the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 becomes law on July 1.

The bill was signed by President Bush in February to slow the growth of Medicaid by shifting costs to beneficiaries and limiting health care coverage and access to services for low-income eligibles.

more...

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Jun-14-Wed-2006/news/7927354.html

[donco6]

1. School-based Medicaid delivery is in peril!

Right now, we get a small reimbursement for services delivered to Medicaid-eligible children. The rules say we're supposed to verify a SS number, but many are kids and don't have SS numbers yet. This is really going to hurt our service delivery. We could lose at least one mental health worker (just when the teachers are really starting to benefit from the services we're finally able to provide to their kids).

Thanks George!

[underpants]

2. This might not be popular but you DO need to get your papers in order

bascially that is what this boils down to - that is the "What" the "How" is another matter.

I have some first hand knowledge on implimenting a system requiring an ID and the troubles mostly came from in house fear of change. That being said this is the way of the future. People are going to have to get some form of ID and carry it with them, that may not be how things have been in the past but that is the way things are going to be. Resistance is futile.

The problem here is that suddenly WHAM it is being required. They need to have a period of notification (not every has hotmail you know) and time to drag people kicking and screaming into the 21st century. What you see here is a "policy" that not only sounds like some screaming Banshee of talk radio came up with it but that is tailored for said Banshee to regularly have poo flinging exercises with angry ape listeners. Such is the state of governance in Dick Cheney's America.

[saigon68]

4. warten Sie eine Minute, die Ihre Papiere gefallen

LOL

[NVMojo]

6. yeah, tell that to the elderly and Native Americans who were born years

ago in very rural remote areas. The Bush legacy, bend over.

[kineneb]

3. no ID, no care?

So what if the person has a highly contagious form of TB or other disease? Will the programs be forced to turn them out on the streets again?

I see a public health nightmare coming...

[jwirr]

5. I have lived in Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota and have always

had to provide both SS numbers and birth certificates for my family as far back as 1966. The children had SS numbers since they were born. I don't think this is new.

However, what is new is homelessness for a larger number of people. There will have to be state by state intervention in this area. As to the school programs: Why don't these children have SS numbers? I would think that the school would have someone who could look into this and help the family obtain numbers if they are legal.