How Medicaid Fails the Poor: Avik Roy: Amazon.com: Books

I’d say we’re about to start a gigantic experiment – How Medicaid Fails the Poor: Avik Roy: 9781594037528: Amazon.com: Books.

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.

With bureaucratic idiocy like this, Honesty doesn’t pay off for ex-homeless man, I don’t see how the government can provide useful health coverage via Medicaid.

A good deed has come back to haunt a formerly homeless northern New Jersey man.James Brady found $850 on a Hackensack sidewalk last April and turned it in to police. Brady was awarded the money six months later after no one contacted police during the required waiting period.

Now, The Record reports that Brady has been denied General Assistance and Medicaid benefits by the Hackensack Human Services Department through Dec. 31 because he failed to report the $850 as new income he received.

The director of human services tells the newspaper they are just following the rules.

Brady was homeless when he found the money but has since found housing. He was featured in news reports nationwide for turning in the money, despite his own financial struggles.

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