The Medicaid expansion is now complete.
The PA Department of Health announced today that the shift to the full Medicaid expansion included in the ACA (aka Obamacare) is finished.
“Medicaid expansion means that more Pennsylvanians have access to primary and preventative care. As a result, they will be able to see a doctor when they are sick, have better health outcomes, and be able to avoid costly trips the emergency room,” said DHS Secretary Ted Dallas. “I would like to thank the DHS staff who have dedicated months to successfully implementing this Medicaid expansion – because of your hard work hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians have health care coverage.”
Gov. Wolf’s HealthChoices plan has now completely unseated Gov. Corbett’s private-public hybrid HealthyPA plan.
So far, according to the Wolf Administration, almost 440,000 are newly covered by Medicaid while an additional 216,000 have enrolled in HealthChoices since April. This move has saved the commonwealth approximately $626 million.
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6 Responses
Low income elderly and disabled are still not covered as promised. The monthly cutoff for an individual is $961 a month. If you receive more than this, you are NOT ELIGIBLE for Medicaid. Go figure! These are the very people that were to be included in Medicaid expansion. The way it is written in the http://www.healthychoicespa.com website,is, individual with incomes up to 138% of Federal Poverty Level or $16,243 are eligible. However, elderly and disabled who make over $11,532 a year in say, Social Security are EXCLUDED from qualifying for Medicaid! This is the way the expansion has been written in Pennsylvania, presumably to assuage Republican partisans to prevent them from stroking out at the thought of Medicaid expansion.This harms the very people who need the Medicaid program the most – the poor. Doubt what I have written, check with the experts, they will verify my claims.
PA doesn’t have a Department of Health and Human Services; that’s the name of the federal department. In PA, we have two: a Dept of Health and a Dept of Human Services.
This is a Pa Dept of Human Services site to consider.
http://www.dhs.state.pa.us/wheredotaxdollarsgo/numberofpeopleenrolledindepartmentbenefitprograms/
Just stupid Teapublicans mis-labelling every govt social program “welfare”, even Social Security and Medicare. How ignorant!!! But they seem to never have a problem with govt giveaways to businesses, such as tax holidays and waivers.
How is social security not also a public welfare program, by that definition? People “pay up front” taxes all the time—usually into buckets they have no choice about. Does the cigarette smoker get to claim those taxes against other benefits from the government?
So, excluding social security retirement (which is paid upfront) precisely how many Pennsylvanians are now on some sort of public welfare program?