Word: medicaid
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...year, compared with 1.3% for the total population. Government programs also subsidize the convalescence of the ailing aged. For an oldster who has been in a hospital at least three days, Medicare will pay nearly all costs for 100 days in an approved nursing home. In most states Medicaid picks up the bills for the low-income aged who need still longer stays...
Faced with the spiraling cost of its program, New Mexico this month cut off assistance to the 63,000 people on its Medicaid rolls. As a result, many elderly Medicaid recipients began an exodus from nursing homes, causing the State Department of Hospitals and Institutions to devise a "disaster plan" to find beds for the displaced. The irony of New Mexico's agony is that it was totally unnecessary. In March, State Budget Chief Waldo Anton (who has since resigned) persuaded the legislature to avoid an expected deficit by canceling Medicaid. He had been told by regional officers...
Futile Illegality. Almost immediately, HEW officials in Washington said that New Mexico would not be readmitted to the program at the proposed lower level. A state, they said, cannot arbitrarily scale down Medicaid assistance below certain minimum requirements set in Washington. Five services are mandatory: in-patient and outpatient hospital care, doctors' care, X rays, lab tests and nursing-home benefits. The New Mexicans, said HEW, were demanding Medicaid on their own terms, which were not only illegal but self-defeating. Although the state might have saved $1,000,000 by quitting Medicaid and rejoining it with a less...
Anticipating the sort of problems that have plagued New Mexico, eleven of the 50 states have never joined the Medicaid program. At least four of them -Virginia, New Jersey, Tennessee and North Carolina-are fairly certain to, sign up by the Jan. 1, 1970 deadline; after that date, nonmembers stand to lose federal funds that support alternative programs for the medically indigent. Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana and Mississippi are hoping that the deadline will be extended, but are not expected to join Medicaid before Jan. 1 in any case. Two states have special problems: Alaska, which would have to take...
...avert repetitions of the crisis in New Mexico, Congress is currently considering modifications in the Medicaid rules. New Mexico's Senator Clinton P. Anderson, widely hailed as "the father of Medicare" for his legislative labors in its behalf, has introduced a bill that would allow hard-pressed states to reduce their commitments under the program without risking expulsion. That would certainly prove a great boon to many states. What it would do to the medically indigent remains to be seen...