By Brandon Sandine
Rockford Register Star, Letters, June 9, 2013
The Illinois General Assembly agreed to accept federal monies to expand Medicaid in our state beginning in 2014.
Thatās good news for the residents of our state who are disabled or have an income at or below 133 percent the federal poverty level, or $15,281 a year.
Effective Jan. 1, 2014, some of the most vulnerable sections of our population will less frequently have to choose between paying food bills and seeking medical care. Much human suffering will be alleviated and many lives will be saved. An estimated 342,000 people are expected to benefit.
Medicaid is a federally and state-funded program. However, the financial risk that our state is taking on with the expansion of Medicaid is small. This expansion is almost completely funded by the federal government, and should the federal source of funding ever drop beneath 90 percent, the law will automatically cease.
While the financial pressures on the Illinois economy are very real, expanding Medicaid should not prove to be one of them. When it comes to the stateās pension funds, for example, the law certifies that its impact is null.
Illinoisā decision to support the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, President Obamaās landmark health law, is great news for our nationās health. Yet even if the ACA takes full effect, an estimated 1.7 million residents of our state will still be left uninsured or underinsured.
In many ways the new health law is merely a Band-Aid fix. I believe single-payer health insurance is the only way to repair our broken, fragmented system, which currently wastes so much money on private insurance company paperwork and bureaucracy. What we really need is an improved Medicare for all.
Brandon Sandine of Machesney Park is a Master of Public Health candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
http://www.rrstar.com/updates/x1466762604/My-View-Medicaid-expansion-good-thing-for-now#ixzz2Vp63AWzJ