42% of Medicaid Funding is for Elderly in Nursing Homes; GOP Bill Cuts It

A group of Republican Senators operated in secrecy on the Senate's version of a "healthcare" bill to take away said healthcare from nearly 10% of the country and cut taxes on the wealthiest. Last Thursday, they unveiled a plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with no healthcare for millions of individuals.  They expect to rush to a vote on it this week.  

Those who held out hope the Senate would serve as a voice of reason compared to the savage "healthcare" bill passed by the House have been proven wrong unfortunately.  The Senate bill appears to be even worse.  

The savage cuts to Medicaid will directly harm elderly Americans who depend on Medicaid to live their remaining years in our great country by ripping it away.

Medicaid pays for most of the 1.4 million people in nursing homes.... It covers 20 percent of all Americans and 40 percent of poor adults.... long-term services such as nursing homes account for 42 percent of all Medicaid spending — even though only 6 percent of Medicaid enrollees use them.

Republicans hope to roll back what they see as an expanding and costly entitlement. But little has been said about what would happen to older Americans in nursing homes if the cuts took effect.

A combination of longer life spans and spiraling health care costs has left an estimated 64 percent of the Americans in nursing homes dependent on Medicaid. “People are simply outliving their relatives and their resources, and fortunately, Medicaid has been there,” said Mark Parkinson, the president of the American Health Care Association, a national nursing home industry group.

At Dogwood Village in Virginia, a non-profit facility featured in the New York Times article below, the impacts are real.

Major Medicaid cuts would compel Dogwood Village to cut staff, supplies and amenities — changes that would affect the quality of care for all residents, not just those on Medicaid.  If that does not save enough money, the nursing home might have to reduce the number of Medicaid residents...

Some residents do not even know they are on government insurance; administrators often complete the paperwork to start Medicaid once other insurance expires. Others are embarrassed that they are dependent on a program that still carries stigma.

They should not be, said Jennifer Harper, the assistant director of nursing. Relying on Medicaid for nursing home care has become the new normal. “These folks have worked their whole lives, some with pretty strenuous jobs, and paid into the system,” she said. But with changes looming, she said, “it may be a system that fails them.”

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/science/medicaid-cutbacks-elderly-nursing-homes.html