Brownback (Kansas) Turns Medicaid Over to Private Companies.. and these are the results
Today, Pitch Magazine, a Kansas City alternative newspaper released a scathing, on point analysis of Kansas "KanCare" debacle.
Since learning of his condition in college, Bullers has slowly lost control of his body. But his mind remains clear. These days, the former Kansas City Star reporter spends his days hounding a bureaucracy in Topeka in an attempt to keep in-home nurses all day, every day. This past January, the state transferred the care of 380,000 Medicaid recipients to three private companies as part of a program called KanCare. Gov. Sam Brownback has said the wholesale privatization of Medicaid under KanCare was meant to save $1 billion over five years. He also promised that the move wouldn't sacrifice Kansans' level of care, and the number of people on Medicaid's waiting list would be reduced.http://www.pitch.com/...
But the only way for the three managed-care organizations to realize cost savings on clients with permanent physical disabilities, like Bullers, is by cutting Medicaid services. Bullers' 24/7 care was slated to be reduced by November 1 to 40 hours per week. Caregivers, who now work in three eight-hour shifts, could visit him only on weekdays for eight hours a day, or all seven days of the week for five hours each.
"To me, that's an Orwellian clusterfuck," Bullers tells The Pitch. "How can you take out that chunk of money on the backs of the most vulnerable and say with a straight face that you're going to improve services? It defies common sense."
The Pitch of course does all of the leg work in a multi-page piece
that deserves to be read. Because it highlights what is wrong with
using a for-profit motive when dispensing need to those who are amongst
the most vulnerable.
It isn't as though Kansas couldn't see it coming:
It isn't as though Kansas couldn't see it coming:
Steve Rosehttp://joco913.com/... Pitch lays out the truth in page after page..
Star columnist The Kansas Health Institute has nailed it.
KanCare – to paraphrase – is likely to be a mess when it is implemented on Jan. 1.
On that date 380,000 poor and disabled Kansans, who now receive services through Medicaid, will be shifted to private, managed care in an attempt to save money. The new program is called KanCare.
The KHI researched what has happened in Kentucky, which recently has implemented what we are about to implement. And, so far, it has had lots of hiccups.
And Kentucky did not even include three categories that are included in the Kansas plan: long-term services for the elderly, physically disabled and, eventually, the developmentally disabled.
Medicaid is a health program for low-income Americans that's funded jointly by states and the federal government. Several states have transferred segments of their Medicaid programs to private insurers to curb rising costs.Brownback has made every effort to twist the truth and portray this story one way.. when it is far different than that.
While other states have dipped their toes into the privatization of Medicaid, Kansas has cannonballed into the deep end by shifting all of its Medicaid management to three private companies. "It is the most extensive in the nation," says Gary Blumenthal, a former Kansas legislator who is now CEO of the Association of Developmental Disabilities Providers in suburban Boston and a member of the federal National Council on Disability. "Other states have viewed managed care as an area to move slowly and cautiously in the use of managed care, to determine if the use of managed care can produce the savings that advocates claim can occur while preserving the quality and safety for people that it would be serving."
"The process has not gone as smoothly as the people at the Statehouse would have you believe, as far as the implementation is concerned," said Allen Van Driel, CEO of Smith County Memorial Hospital in north-central Kansas, according to a September 23 Kansas Health Institute News Service report. "The party line is that the managed-care plans are working and that KanCare is a huge success, that it's processing claims and all that. But that's simply not factual."This is a powerful piece that needs to be read by more people. What it doesn't touch on, though is the falseness of this dilemma altogether. Those like Brownback assert that there simply isn't enough money to support all those who are sick and disabled, therefore they must cut costs. What isn't be said is that there is another alternative to continuous cutting of costs.. it's called increasing revenues. Brownback and others hate that - cut, cut cut is the only way. But in the end, part of the social responsibility has to be the fact that we care for those who need it most. This means that we count on companies not getting over the top tax breaks, we ask that people carry their weight and we provide for our population. But that kind of talk makes people unhappy. Too bad, because tonight here in KC there are a lot of people on a wait list that is now 7+ years long who won't get services because the continuous cuts to healthcare in Kansas.
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