Posted on 09/22/2007 6:26:48 AM PDT by Jim Noble
After facing a barrage of criticism, the state backed off plans yesterday to require low-income patients to pay the equivalent of a small insurance premium before they get free care at hospitals.
But in a compromise plan intended to reduce dependence on the state's free-care pool, care will no longer be completely free for the lowest-income patients.
Starting Dec. 1, the rules will require small copayments of $1 or $3 on prescriptions for all eligible patients. Those with an income between 101 percent and 200 percent of the poverty level will face copayments of $5 for a hospital office visit, $50 for an inpatient hospital stay, and $50 for an emergency room visit that does not result in an admission. Those fees will be capped at $250 a year.
There are no copayments for children or for care at community health centers.
The rule changes to the free-care pool are an important part of the state's landmark initiative to get all Massachusetts residents covered by health insurance. To provide state-subsidized insurance, the state is using money that was previously spent on the free-care pool...
The final revisions eliminate a $35-a-month deductible state officials had proposed earlier for some free-care patients. Those deductible payments, which state officials sought as an incentive to encourage people to move off free care, drew the greatest fire from healthcare advocates and hospitals that serve large numbers of low-income people. They said the deductibles would scare some needy patients away and would be difficult for hospitals and healthcare centers to collect...
State officials have said they would carefully monitor the changes in free care and make further adjustments if necessary.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Unless this changes (and it's getting worse, not better), we're in for a rough ride indeed.
breaking up [with entitlements] is hard to do.
SNORT.
I’m delighted. You’d think MA would already be at the bottom of a slippery slope, but somehow they managed to slide further.
low income = illegal aliens
A lot of them probably are. The way I look at it, if you have money to send back to Mexico every month you have money to pay for your health care.
A lot of them probably are. The way I look at it, if you have money to send back to Mexico every month you have money to pay for your health care.
couldn’t agree more....in NJ...they all just waltz into the emergency rooms and demand in spanish tratment....if a paying legal US citizen is taken before them....they scream discrimination and they lib/dems back them!!!
Let me share a true story:
I have a student in my band. He is a small fellow. Because of his size (just slightly smaller than average boys of the same age, he has always garnered a lot of help with his equipment (percussion). He has no disabilities.
Well - as time has gone on, the more people have helped him, the more he expects others to do. Even more disturbing, not only has he grown more lazy, now believes that he is entitled to the extra help, and is unappreciative, be he also has grown far less responsible in all aspects of his life.
Are you the band master ? can you put a stop to it ?
Tell him to trade to the piccolo.
Hey Gringo,
Why should I pay for what the Politocraps are giving me for free? Just pay your taxes and stop whining. Let me “Do the work Gringos don’t want to do. Soon when Bushie gets his way, I can take my investment in Social Security payments back to my homeland and live like a Gringo. /sarc/ :-(
Why go to Walgreens and spend $10 on cough syrup when you can go to ER for free?
The amount is irrelevant it must be some fixed real minimum amount or percentage. Absent, it cheapens and demeans everyone and it ignores a human failing that has the force and predictability of universal physical laws: It cheapens the "giver", who is coerced no less than a slave is, to "contribute"; it cheapens the taker, for whom "free health care" means of no cost to anybody.
It also ignores the fact that every time anything is free, it will be abused, no matter if needed or not.
Yes, I am the band director. Things are not like they were when I was a band student. You can’t just ax a kid any more (at least in most schools). And we are trying to wean him off the “welfare”...
thanks..hang in there..keep at it...the kid will thank you in the long run ( and might not even know it )
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