Health and Poverty Commentaries
"Medicare and Medicaid are the primary drivers of federal spending increases in coming decades. Both programs rely on the private health system to deliver care, so they are at its mercy just like businesses and families."
"Almost 90% of seniors need and have some form of supplemental coverage on top of Medicare. Further, many low-income Americans rely on Medicare Advantage to supplement coverage"
"Social Security, all public and no option, rescued older Americans from living their final years in poverty"
"[A] comprehensive change in federal sick-leave policy that wouldn't push low-wage workers closer to poverty with every cough or sore throat"
"[T]he law's programs and incentives act in concert to expand access to subsidized coverage for low-income families largely through a reallocation of funds from uncompensated care"
Reducing the Burden and Increasing Opportunity
"Why would this poor border town spend $15,000 a year per Medicare enrollee? Rochester, Minn., home to the famed Mayo Clinic, only spends about half as much"
"[I]f Obama approves new taxes on beer, wine and sodas, then he will be imposing a massive new tax on the groceries of millions of middle- and lower-income Americans"
"Between 2000 and 2007, the number of low-income workers offered health insurance at work fell from 65 percent to just 58 percent"
"[U]ninsured women may receive prenatal and post-partum care at safety-net institutions such as city-funded clinics, federally qualified health centers, rural health programs, or other free clinics"
"Separate plans put forth by Mr. Nixon and the Senate would have expanded eligibility to parents earning less than 50 percent of poverty, or about $9,000 for a family of three"
"There is already a national health-care plan, Medicaid for the low-income. Universal access could be provided simply by allowing any legal resident to buy into Medicaid at the government's cost"
"In their zeal to protect the state from giving health care to poor Missourians, legislators rejected a plan to provide health care to 35,000 low-income, uninsured parents at no cost to the state"
"Low-income people would get subsidies to help buy a private or public plan"
"Right or wrong, more doctors will close their practices to new patients, especially patients carrying lower paying insurance such as Medicaid"
"Schip was pitched a decade ago as a safety net for poor kids, and some Republicans helped sell it as a free-market reform. But Schip is now open to families that earn up to 300% of the poverty level, or $63,081 for a family of four"
"The closest emergency room is miles away. The clinic serves as a safety net for many residents who have urgent medical needs but lack the flexibility to keep regular doctor appointments"
"Today, the man from this story could be any one of America's poor or uninsured who lay in wait within the nation's many overburdened hospital emergency rooms. It is only because of faith and perseverance that I am not one of them"
"Even in today's economy, they fault people for not securing good-paying jobs that offer health insurance. They falsely equate poverty with lack of initiative"
"A recent statewide survey commissioned by AltaMed and conducted by veteran pollster Ben Tulchin found that two-thirds of registered voters support more public funding for community clinics"
"The same lawmakers who voted to saddle taxpayers with higher costs for treating uninsured motorcyclists have refused to extend Medicaid to working parents struggling to raise children at incomes well below the poverty line"
"[W]ould grant health-care coverage to more low-income Missourians without spending money from the general fund. It's nearly inconceivable that legislators have taken so long to embrace this stellar opportunity"
"[T]he president needs to also focus on other significant issues that matter to those who elected him: Passage of a universal health care bill, raising the minimum wage and reforming No Child Left Behind"
"Factors such as poverty, poor health systems and a lack of information make it difficult for families to secure preventative medical care. These parents do not have a choice whether to immunize their children"
"[M]y home community desperately needs the best care available. We contend with widespread poverty and some of the nation's highest rates of chronic disease -- diabetes, hypertension, asthma"