Medicaid Politics and Policy

Medicaid Politics and Policy
Author: David G. Smith
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 472
Release: 2017-09-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1351295780

The story of Medicaid comes alive for readers in this strong narrative, including detailed accounts of important policy changes and extensive use of interviews. A central theme of the book is that Medicaid is a "weak entitlement," one less established or effectively defended than Medicare or Social Security, but more secure than welfare or food stamps. In their analysis, the authors argue that the future of Medicaid is sound. It has the flexibility to be adapted by states as well as to allow for policy innovation. At the same time, the program lacks an effective mechanism for overall reform. They note Medicaid has become a source of perennial political controversy as it has grown to become the largest health insurance system in the country. The book's dual emphasis on politics and policy is important in making the arcane Medicaid program accessible to readersand in distinguishing policy grounded in analysis from partisan ideology. This second edition features a new preface, three new chapters accounting for the changes to the Affordable Care Act, and an updated glossary.

The Politics of Medicaid

The Politics of Medicaid
Author: Laura Katz Olson
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 609
Release: 2010-05-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0231521596

In 1965, the United States government enacted legislation to provide low-income individuals with quality health care and related services. Initially viewed as the friendless stepchild of Medicare, Medicaid has grown exponentially since its inception, becoming a formidable force of its own. Funded jointly by the national government and each of the fifty states, the program is now the fourth most expensive item in the federal budget and the second largest category of spending for almost every state. Now, under the new, historic health care reform legislation, Medicaid is scheduled to include sixteen million more people. Laura Katz Olson, an expert on health, aging, and long-term care policy, unravels the multifaceted and perplexing puzzle of Medicaid with respect to those who invest in and benefit from the program. Assessing the social, political, and economic dynamics that have shaped Medicaid for almost half a century, she helps readers of all backgrounds understand the entrenched and powerful interests woven into the system that have been instrumental in swelling costs and holding elected officials hostage. Addressing such fundamental questions as whether patients receive good care and whether Medicaid meets the needs of the low-income population it is supposed to serve, Olson evaluates the extent to which the program is an appropriate foundation for health care reform.

Medicaid

Medicaid
Author: Daniel Lanford
Publisher: Nova Science Publishers
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 9781536181333

"Medicaid is a big deal. It is the U.S. health insurance safety net for low-income pregnant women and children, but it also affects many people above the poverty line, including disabled people in middle-class families and aged adults who, in an unsettlingly common pattern, live working class or middle class lives but lose all assets during extended nursing home stays. Now that the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) is implemented, Medicaid also covers many low-income, non-elderly, non-parent adults. The complex world of Medicaid is swirling with questions. What does Medicaid do for people? Why do people tend to support or oppose Medicaid policy? What is it like to be a Medicaid beneficiary? Will social divisions or administrative red tape eventually sink the program, or will it grow? This book helps answer these questions. Each chapter contains insights useful for practitioners and researchers alike. This book is also useful for both beginners and specialists. Each chapter introduces a key issue then takes a deep dive into the most important nooks and crannies of the program. This book also raises new questions. For those interested in answering these questions, the following chapters offer a wide range investigative techniques that future Medicaid researchers could employ. Warning: the work will not be easy. Medicaid is complex and constantly changing. Yet whether readers want to understand ongoing changes or create changes of their own, they are likely to find much of the information they need in the chapters that follow"--

Financing Medicaid

Financing Medicaid
Author: Shanna Rose
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2013-08-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0472051970

Medicaid has grown to be the largest intergovernmental grant program in the United States, thanks to the efforts of state governors

The Political Life of Medicare

The Political Life of Medicare
Author: Jonathan Oberlander
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2003-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226615960

In recent years, bitter partisan disputes have erupted over Medicare reform. Democrats and Republicans have fiercely contested issues such as prescription drug coverage and how to finance Medicare to absorb the baby boomers. As Jonathan Oberlander demonstrates in The Political Life of Medicare, these developments herald the reopening of a historic debate over Medicare's fundamental purpose and structure. Revealing how Medicare politics and policies have developed since Medicare's enactment in 1965 and what the program's future holds, Oberlander's timely and accessible analysis will interest anyone concerned with American politics and public policy, health care politics, aging, and the welfare state.

The Politics of Medicare

The Politics of Medicare
Author: Theodore R. R. Marmor
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1351476920

On July 30, 1965, President Johnson flew to Independence, Missouri to sign the Medicare bill. The new statute included two related insurance programs to finance substantial portions of the hospital and physician expenses incurred by Americans over the age of sixty-five. Public attempts to improve American health standards have typically precipitated bitter debate, even as the issue has shifted from the professional and legal status of physicians to the availability of hospital care and public health programs. In The Politics of Medicare, Marmor helps the reader understand Medicare's origins, and he interprets the history of the program and explores what happened to Medicare politically as it turned from a legislative act in the mid-1960s to a major program of American government in the three decades since. This is a vibrant study of an important piece of legislation that asks and answers several questions: How could the American political system yield a policy that simultaneously appeased anti-governmental biases and used the federal government to provide a major entitlement? How was the American Medical Association legally overcome yet placated enough to participate in the program? And how did the Medicare law emerge so enlarged from earlier proposals that themselves had caused so much controversy?

Medicaid: Politics, Policy, and Key Issues

Medicaid: Politics, Policy, and Key Issues
Author: Daniel Lanford
Publisher:
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2020
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 9781536182309

"Medicaid is a big deal. It is the U.S. health insurance safety net for low-income pregnant women and children, but it also affects many people above the poverty line, including disabled people in middle-class families and aged adults who, in an unsettlingly common pattern, live working class or middle class lives but lose all assets during extended nursing home stays. Now that the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) is implemented, Medicaid also covers many low-income, non-elderly, non-parent adults. The complex world of Medicaid is swirling with questions. What does Medicaid do for people? Why do people tend to support or oppose Medicaid policy? What is it like to be a Medicaid beneficiary? Will social divisions or administrative red tape eventually sink the program, or will it grow? This book helps answer these questions. Each chapter contains insights useful for practitioners and researchers alike. This book is also useful for both beginners and specialists. Each chapter introduces a key issue then takes a deep dive into the most important nooks and crannies of the program. This book also raises new questions. For those interested in answering these questions, the following chapters offer a wide range investigative techniques that future Medicaid researchers could employ. Warning: the work will not be easy. Medicaid is complex and constantly changing. Yet whether readers want to understand ongoing changes or create changes of their own, they are likely to find much of the information they need in the chapters that follow"--

Medicare and Medicaid at 50

Medicare and Medicaid at 50
Author: Alan B. Cohen
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2015
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0190231548

For fifty years, Medicare and Medicaid have stood at the center of a contentious debate surrounding American government, citizenship, and health care entitlement. In Medicare and Medicaid at 50, leading scholars in politics, government, economics, health policy, and history offer a comprehensive assessment of the evolution of these programs and their impact on society -- from their origins in the Great Society era to the current battles over the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"). These highly accessible essays examine Medicare and Medicaid from their origins as programs for the elderly and poor to their later role as a safety net for the middle class. Along the way, they have served as touchstones for heated debates about economics, social welfare, and the role of government. Medicare and Medicaid at 50 addresses key questions for understanding the past and future of health policy in America, including: · What were the origins for these initiatives, and how were they transformed over time? · What marks have Medicare and Medicaid left on society? · In what ways have these programs produced innovation, even in eras of retrenchment? · How did Medicaid, once regarded as a poor person's program, expand its benefits and coverage over the decades to become the platform for the ACA's future expansion? The volume's contributors go on to examine the powerful role of courts in these transformations, along with the shifting roles of Congress, public opinion, and state governors in the programs' ongoing evolution. From Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama on the left, and from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush on the right, American political leaders have tied their political fortunes to the fate of America's entitlement programs; Medicare and Medicaid at 50 helps explain why, and how those ongoing debates are likely to shape the future of the Affordable Care Act.

Power, Politics, and Universal Health Care

Power, Politics, and Universal Health Care
Author: Stuart Altman
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Total Pages: 479
Release: 2011-09-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1616144572

Essential reading for every American who must navigate the US health care system. Why was the Obama health plan so controversial and difficult to understand? In this readable, entertaining, and substantive book, Stuart Altman—internationally recognized expert in health policy and adviser to five US presidents—and fellow health care specialist David Shactman explain not only the Obama health plan but also many of the intriguing stories in the hundred-year saga leading up to the landmark 2010 legislation. Blending political intrigue, policy substance, and good old-fashioned storytelling, this is the first book to place the Obama health plan within a historical perspective. The authors describe the sometimes haphazard, piece-by-piece construction of the nation’s health care system, from the early efforts of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman to the later additions of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. In each case, they examine the factors that led to success or failure, often by illuminating little-known political maneuvers that brought about immense shifts in policy or thwarted herculean efforts at reform. The authors look at key moments in health care history: the Hill–Burton Act in 1946, in which one determined poverty lawyer secured the rights of the uninsured poor to get hospital care; the "three-layer cake" strategy of powerful House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Wilbur Mills to enact Medicare and Medicaid under Lyndon Johnson in 1965; the odd story of how Medicare catastrophic insurance was passed by Ronald Reagan in 1988 and then repealed because of public anger in 1989; and the fact that the largest and most expensive expansion of Medicare was enacted by George W. Bush in 2003. President Barack Obama is the protagonist in the climactic chapter, learning from the successes and failures chronicled throughout the narrative. The authors relate how, in the midst of a worldwide financial meltdown, Obama overcame seemingly impossible obstacles to accomplish what other presidents had tried and failed to achieve for nearly one hundred years.

How Medicaid Fails the Poor

How Medicaid Fails the Poor
Author: Avik Roy
Publisher: Encounter Books
Total Pages: 44
Release: 2013-11-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1594037531

Medicaid, America’s government-run health insurance program for the poor, should be a lifeline that provides needed health care to Americans with no other options. Surprisingly, however, it doesn’t. The medical literature reveals a $450 billion-a-year scandal: that people on Medicaid have far worse health outcomes than those with private insurance, and no better outcomes than those with no insurance at all. Why is this so? In How Medicaid Fails the Poor, Avik Roy explains how Medicaid’s clumsy design and perverse incentives make it hard for people on Medicaid to get the medical care they need. Medicaid doesn’t reimburse doctors or hospitals for the cost of caring for Medicaid enrollees, forcing many doctors to opt out of the program. The Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, doubles down on this broken system. Roy shows us that there are better ways, using private insurance, to provide needed care to our poorest citizens.