the impact new U.S. law changes seen in Health insurers raising rates in Alabama
The National Conference of State Legislatures last week brought to Mississippi nonpartisan voice of reason and information on the mandate in the country the reform of health care is still developing in detail and impact.
Some but not all legislators attended the hearing at the Capitol to listen to the experts themselves from the conference to try to help legislators and others to unravel what are undoubtedly complex changes in the way that millions of Americans will have or increase in health insurance coverage – the same kind of complexity most people see in the health insurance coverage as it exists now.
Mississippi state government must have a focussed and open interest in the provisions of the law, because our state has a disproportionate number of low-income citizens will become eligible for Medicaid beginning 2014.
The national conference on health care policy director, Joy Johnson Wilson, told the public forum that 400,000 Mississippians could be added to rolls of Medicaid because their income is below 133 percent of federal poverty level – $ 14,400 for an individual. However, he stressed that the federal government will cover 100 percent of the cost of insuring newly eligible enrollees for three years and then stabilize its share of the cost of new members, 90 percent higher than the current rate , increased 84 percent. The federal party is expected to return to about 76 percent when matching funds greater expires.
Most of the response to the mandate has been politicized and characterized by strong objections about increased costs to the state, and certainly should be discussed thoroughly with the same type of independent review provided by the national conference. On the other hand, thousands of new Medicaid clients will be secured, guaranteeing payment of health care, mostly delivered by the private sector.
The biggest problem is the disturbing fact that one third of the population in Mississippi will benefit from the new Medicaid coverage, a commentary on the horrible low education, the underemployed, whose health care costs increased thrust, if not seek preventive care and see no incentive in taking better care of themselves.
In that context, health also becomes a question of political leadership and success in achieving higher educational attainment and economic development.
Public health and personal responsibilities are often mired in poverty together, linking directly to the lack of education, which circulates back to poverty and poor health. Mississippi is a case study for that.
National reforms of health care may fall short of political promises – like the defective and not political promises and leadership that are still part of Mississippi’s problems.