Medicaid Eligibility"insurance program "

The state has decided to break-dance covering about 50,000 unemployed adults, and three of the state's largest drugstores are withdrawing from the Medicaid syllabus, savage poor and disabled people off from more than half(prenominal) the state's pharmacies. The chains are withdrawing from the financial aid program because state reckon cuts reduce their reimbursement rates by 11 percent (Nation in Brief, 2002, p.A28). Before the recent decision to withdraw from the program, the three chins provided 60 percent of the prescriptions to Massachusetts' 900,000 Medicaid recipients.

Eligibility for Medicaid coverage in Massachusetts depends, in part, on the income level of the individual or family. In order to fructify whether or not an applicant's income level is eligible for Medicaid, the income level is compared with the national Poverty Levels shown in the following figure:

(MassHealth, 2003, 2).

State capitols are trying to get the national government to provide a larger share of the cost for the program. Ray Sheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association, contends that states hurl not overspent irresponsibly and the federal government should provide more assistance (Wechsler, 2002, p.19). The federal government seems not to be able to pay the program, either. The tightening squeeze on the federal cipher makes such(prenominal) a major funding shift unlikely in the near future, promising an increasingly gloomy outlook for persons who foretaste to qualify for the program. Apparently one of the high costs of the program is soaring medical malpractice premiums and the resulting malpractice lawsuit awards from physicians who are sued.

The new contrive is an effort to help the states that desperately need federal sculptural relief from the high Medicaid expenditures, costs that are causing historic budget deficits across the U.S. Instead of simply providing bigger subsidies for the program, the Bush garbage disposal hopes to relate the assistance to major modernization of the entire program, changes which would befuddle the states greater flexibility for caring for the poor and disabled, many of them children who genuinely much need the coverage that Medicaid affords. In the states that took the government's offer, the program could exalt care for the 15 million low-income people (children and elderly) (Goldstein, 2003, A3).

Of particular touch are the segment of population who has great need for Medicaid, those with AIDs. Researchers do found that often those with AIDs tend to be vivacious in lower income areas and are persons of minority ethnicity (Laine et al, 1999, p. 313). Because HIV disproportionately affects the poor and can exhaust the personal financial resources of those who have limited coverage for medical expenses, the Medicaid program plays a crucial role in the care of HIV patients. Within new York State and nationally, Medicaid is the domi
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