Devastating cuts to state Medicaid programs

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jul2011/medi-j08.shtml

Devastating cuts to state Medicaid programs
By Naomi Spencer
8 July 2011

With the start of the new fiscal year, the majority of US states are inflicting deep cuts to Medicaid, the health care program for the poor.

The cuts come as millions more working class families are compelled by the ongoing economic crisis to seek out public assistance such as Medicaid. Medicaid recipients are largely poor children, pregnant women, the elderly and disabled.

The program, jointly funded by state and federal governments, now serves nearly 60 million people—one in five Americans. While constituting an enormous segment of the population, Medicaid recipients are largely disenfranchised from the political process, and are considered an easy target by the Obama administration and its state counterparts, both Democratic and Republican, in the ongoing attack on living standards.

June 30 marked the expiration of the White House “stimulus” plan of 2009, which over the course of two years provided some $90 billion to state Medicaid programs. While the rolls have swelled considerably over the period, the Obama administration has ruled out any extension of additional aid to threadbare state budgets. As a result, the federal share of Medicaid spending will fall from 67 percent to 57 percent this year.

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what they could do is instead up the copay instead of letting it starve to death


we voted for a dem administration..why do they seem to enjoy the misery of poor people going without heath or dental care so rich people who don't need tax breaks get tax breaks?

So the end of the extra funding via stimulus money is now considered a "cut"? Interesting logic.