Achieving Meaningful Access to Medicaid

Federal and state budgetary constraints continually challenge Medicaid. The effects of benefit cuts are common: long waiting lists for community-based services, skeletonized drug formularies with unstable access to long-term prescriptions, no psychiatric therapy for people immobilized by depression,...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Francis, Leslie (Author) ; Silvers, Anita (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2019
In: The Hastings Center report
Year: 2019, Volume: 49, Issue: 2, Pages: 3
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Summary:Federal and state budgetary constraints continually challenge Medicaid. The effects of benefit cuts are common: long waiting lists for community-based services, skeletonized drug formularies with unstable access to long-term prescriptions, no psychiatric therapy for people immobilized by depression, and no more than fourteen days of acute hospitalization. Reimbursements may be so low that providers cannot hire qualified staff and must reduce services, close facilities, or refuse to take Medicaid altogether. Misguided efficiency policies may afflict some groups of patients as well. Decisions to narrow access rights to publicly funded health care promote the perception that more broadly inclusive programs would be unwisely and unfairly generous. They also risk characterizing disability rights as “special,” confined to a narrow class of people who charitably ought not to be expected to provide for themselves. In contrast, on a philosophical view we have been exploring—one that addresses problems of justice under circumstances of injustice by pursuing rather than reducing inclusion—efforts like these are unjust.
ISSN:1552-146X
Contains:Enthalten in: Hastings Center, The Hastings Center report
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1002/hast.985