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...But the bill and accompanying threat weren't a mistake.
Rather, it was part of a routine process the federal government requires of every state: to recover money from the assets of dead people who, in their final years, relied on Medicaid, the taxpayer-funded health insurance for the poorest Americans.
A person's home is typically exempt from qualifying for Medicaid. But it is subject to the estate recovery process for those who were over 55 and used Medicaid to pay for long-term care such as nursing home stays or in-home health care.
This month, a Democratic lawmaker proposed scuttling the "cruel" program altogether. Critics argue the program collects too little -- roughly 1% -- of the more than $150 billion Medicaid spends yearly on long-term care. They also say many states fail to warn people who sign up for Medicaid that big bills and claims to their property might await their families once they die.
State policies around this recovery process vary widely, according to a 2021 report from the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, which makes policy recommendations to Congress.
Some states will put a lien -- a legal right -- on a home while others don't. Meanwhile, some Medicaid offices try to recoup all medical costs from patients, like doctor visits or prescriptions, while others just pursue the costs for long-term care. Alaska and Arizona pursued just dozens of properties in recent years while other states go after thousands of homes, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.
New York and Ohio topped the country for such collections, recovering more than $100 million combined in a single year, a Dayton Daily News investigation found.
An investigation into the Kansas program, released Tuesday by the Health and Human Services inspector general, found that program was cost effective -- yielding $37 million while only spending $5 million to recover the money, but the state didn't always collect the money from estates that were eligible.
Estate recovery "has the potential to perpetuate wealth disparities and intergenerational poverty," said Katherine Howitt, a Medicaid policy director with the foundation.
In Tennessee, which recovered more than $38.2 million from more than 8,100 estates last year...
...The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission's report recommended that Congress reverse the 1993 law that required states to recover money from estates, instead making it optional.
Earlier this month, Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois reintroduced legislation that would end the federal government's mandate. Schakowsky believes the rule is a losing proposition for families, who give up their homes, and taxpayers, who don't see big returns from the recovery efforts.
"It is one of the most cruel, ineffective programs that we see," Schakowsky told the AP. "This is a program that doesn't work for anybody."
In a gridlocked Congress, where some Republicans are clamoring to trim Medicaid entitlements, the bill is unlikely to garner the bipartisan support needed to become law.
Leftists in Federal government do not like it when States try to retain or re-take powers which the Fed has claimed for itself, especially when a single-party state seems so tantalizingly close.
Emerald Robinson is a far-right pretend journalist. She was fired by NewsMax in 2022 for promoting vaccine conspiracy theories (let that sink in) and now hosts a chat show called "The Absolute Truth" on Mike Lindell's FrankSpeech blog site.
In other words, she is the sort of person whom people who reject "Mainstream Media" look to for their news.
So, yeah.
It is true that the Tennessee Senate did just pass a bill aimed at preventing the Federal government from emitting chemtrails in Tennessee airspace.
Ms. Robinson interprets this as proof that chemtrail conspiracy theories are true.
In reality, this bill says more about the people of Tennessee and their elected representatives than it does about aviation or chemistry.
In this self-controlled case series that included participants aged 2-5 years from three commercial insurance databases, the incidence rate ratio of febrile seizures was significantly elevated in the 0-1 days following mRNA-1273 administration. Absolute risk was small…
The incidence of febrile seizures was elevated immediately following vaccination with the monovalent mRNA-1273 COVID-19 vaccine in children aged 2-5 years.
100% safe and effective.
keep in mind this is virus with, as a percentage, two deaths per million children comes in at a 0.0002% death rate.
Where should we get our news? I usually just read the most liberal sources like yaboo and go straight to the comments. At the very least its entertaining. I swear many of the comments are bots.
Well, I'm a bit biased here, but I'd suggest you watch NewsNation. Because they pay my salary.
But, in all seriousness, there's nothing wrong with viewing traditional mainstream media outlets, such as The Washington Post, Fox news, or NPR. It is important, however, to be alert for two key shortcomings:
1: Bias in the selection of what topics to cover, whom to interview, etc, and
2: The presentation of opinion or commentary as though it were fact.
The latter, in particular, is not unique to traditional media. In fact, it is much more pervasive in new-media. Large, traditional media entities such as newspapers or radio / TV broadcasters have some degree of inherent gatekeeping within their organization, which prevents (or, at the very least, punishes) the publication of outright fabrication and falsehood. By contrast, small, "agile" organizations such as websites do not merely lack such protections, but they actually encourage the fabrication and dissemination of total falsehoods in order to drive engagement, and, thus, cilcks.
Let me give you an example:
Imagine a hypothetical news organization which claims to provide "fair and balanced" reporting. And, by "balanced," they mean that every time an actual expert or professional is interviewed on a given topic, they "balance" that opinion by giving equal screen time to a homeless guy who spends most of his time shouting at pigeons and claiming to hear the literal voice of God.
That's technically "balance," but it's the exact opposite of responsible journalism. Mainstream media outlets mostly prevent this sort of thing from happening. New-media outlets actively encourage it.
What value is the majority of the news that makes headlines? It is of no consequence to me or my family that a ship hit a bridge a thousand miles away, or that a Japanese interpreter stole money and gambled with it.
I need the weather forecast and some pertinent local news relating to construction and events that might effect traffic. I also need pertinent (there's that word again) law and regulation changes locally and nationally.
I don't need to know that yet another Airbus broke up in flight over the Pacific or a Boeing lost a door many states away. Not only is it not pertinent to my life, it's not even really interesting to me.
The reporters don't choose to or aren't directed to cover stories that are of significant importance like the billions of dollars we've spent buying arms from our own defense contractors to give away to the Ukraine and other countries being more than what we have spent on FEMA for our own countrymen. The defense contractors get theirs, the lobbyists on K Street get theirs, the politicians definitely get theirs, and we get exactly what we elected, a steaming pile of crap. And the bill.
The news organizations generally don't report the funds from our taxpayers being given to the Ukraine so that the Ukraine can then turn around and launder it back into the bank accounts of important senators and congressmen and their families.
So why listen if it's all clickbait and puff pieces? Or diversionary crap?
Good point. It's almost like the government which to some degree controls the mainstream media wants us to be consumed by nonsense and not the important issues. Is it because the less informed that we are, the less of an adversary we are?
03-18-2024, 03:16 PM
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