By the end of February, nearly one out of every three Americans will be enrolled in Medicaid, the safety-net health care program that includes Obamacare, all paid for by tax dollars for those without private insurance. It’s a sign that the nation is well on its way to the tipping point that will result in fully socialized medical care.
Last week, the Foundation for Government Accountability launched a public website project to track Medicaid enrollment data as reported by each state. The countdown clock forecasts enrollment in Medicaid will reach 100 million individuals in approximately 75 days.
In 2017, some 184,000 people in Alaska were covered by Medicaid, or about 25% of the population. FGA now puts the Alaska number at 260,334, or nearly 37% of the state’s current population.
At the beginning of January, 98,987,931 Americans were projected to be enrolled in the federal health insurance program, FGA calculated.
“For years, FGA has been warning about the rising number of people on government welfare programs. Now, we’re nearing a grim milestone—nearly one-third of the country will be on Medicaid,” said Hayden Dublois, FGA Data and Analytics Director. “Our research and data show as welfare enrollment increases, workforce participation decreases. We’re in the midst of a nationwide workforce crisis, yet the Biden administration is pushing policies to entice people into government dependency at record levels while limiting opportunities to achieve the American Dream.”
The sharp rise in enrollment is largely due to the federal government’s continued extension of the Covid-19 public health emergency, which locks states in “Medicaid handcuffs.” While the emergency is in effect, states receive extra Medicaid funding on the condition that everyone enrolled remains locked into the program. This has led to an additional 24 million enrollees, more than 21 million of whom would previously not have qualified because they earn too much money or are otherwise ineligible.
“The pandemic-era policy keeping more than 21 million ineligible enrollees on Medicaid is costing taxpayers more than $16 billion per month. Despite the recently enacted legislation allowing states to redetermine eligibility beginning in April, the Biden administration is slow walking the process and hoping states will be sluggish to act,” Dubois said. “In approximately 76 days, 100 million people will be on Medicaid. States should begin preparing now so that they can remove the millions of ineligible enrollees and reclaim program integrity as quickly as possible.”
Even Twitter lay-offs, office closures and selling of even office furniture all layers of the nation’s economy are facing changes and inflation continues.
Many people on non-retirement social security and medicaid think that’s not welfare, but really it is.
See Suzanne I told you I was a fiscal conservative, didn’t even mention pebble this time……Oops, sorry 😉
Nope. I paid into it. Retirement fund loser.
You are slouchin’ in the right direction, Big Joe! When you think of it, in the long run it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference if one dies at birth or at the age of 100, or at 200, or like Methuselah at 696! These ages are but a flash in time when considered to eternity! Why bother, eh?
Oops, now the “churchiness” is coming out of me. Look, if anybody has a clean conscience, it won’t make a damn bit of difference when they go a beggin’ to the Lord! And if their conscience is bothering them, why should we pay for their temporal relief and keep them from the fires of hell for a flash of time? Bad business, eh?
How is Medicaid welfare? If you’re self employed do you know the cost of health insurance? I would assume you don’t. It’s fine and life is grand if you are employed by the government or work for a large enough corporation that they can provide insurance. But what does everyone else do? I’m self employed and pay an arm and a leg for insurance for my family. I watch state and city employees and natives go to the doctor all the time for sore throats and runny noses. Who do you think is paying for that? You guessed it.. business owners. The same people that can’t afford their own insurance. But they are shelling out tax money so you can go to the doctor at will until the day you die.
Loren; You are correct, I realize I was wrong, looked at it from a different angle.
Free handouts = welfare = socialism/communism. Medicaid = free handout. It really is that simple. If we all voted for smaller government people wouldn’t need to pull money out of their pockets to pay for emergency services for druggies and addicts and lazy millennials. As a society we will be stuck chained to this system until we smart up and buck up and Rank The Red.
21% of military families are enrolled in Medicaid presently. THAT’S gonna increase in this report as well.
Maureen, where did you get that statistic?
There are military families enrolled in the food stamp program, but that is NOT the same as Medicaid. It is sad that we can not pay our military members enough to make ends meet.
Active duty military families are covered by Tricare for medical care.
Give the left credit. For 50 years they’ve said they were going to do this. They never wavered, apologized, or tried to horse trade for it. They just kept on coming.
If only the right had that level of conviction regarding anything
Meanwhile… the scam continues. If you are 65 years old, you must register for Medicare – and if you keep working, the premium goes up just like obamascare. The medicare part B premium for my wife and I is now more than 1/3 of our Social Security retirement benefit… Let’s go brandon! If I don’t work, I don’t eat – and if I do work, the damrats steal so much that the days of an occasional steak are gone, and there are no fish in the river ’cause brandon gave them all to the Chinese. Slaves they will make us – or like the Canadians we will be offered MAID because old folks are inconvenient after the govt has taken all their money. It’s Monday folks…
Just don’t register for Medicare — as I plan on not doing.
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Tyrants rely on your obedience.
So many cases of diabetes, no correlation to the pallets of soda flown in to the villages with bypass mail. Also, kraft macaroni and cheese with margarine is not a staple food, regardless of where you live.
You must be a racist since you targeted natives in the bush. What you failed to mention was, diabetes is widespread also outside of the bush. Diabetes is not brought on by pop and macaroni and cheese. Do a little research and you’ll find out what causes diabetes.
I’m inclined to think stupid, not racist. The two don’t necessarily always go together. Look at our legislature.
Actually, soda consumption is a big driver in the explosion of Type 2 in America. The average 12oz can of regular soda has more than 3 times the amount of sugar in it than a person needs in a single day.
Of of my best friends has a diabetic husband and kid. She’s a nurse so she went to big time school on causes and treatments of diabetes.
The average 12oz can of regular soda is basically sugar and enough liquid to mix it in.
Yes, but the root cause is genetics. Pop won’t give you diabetes if you don’t have the gene.
You know more white people have diabetes than natives. Both in numbers and percentage.
Also, I’m curious how you know the dietary habits of the villages. When’s the last time you actually were in one?
I’ve been in villages from SE to the slope. Most of the food I was served was fresh caught/killed, or burgers and fries out of a sense of being good host to their white guests.
You might wanna rethink this post and try again.
You must sign up for Part “A” at 65 or lose your Social Security benefits. You must sign up for Part “B” at 65 too or be subject to a late enrollment penalty. So people that want SS benefits are signing up. State of Alaska requires AlaskaCare covered retirees to sign up for Medicare at 65 when the SOA health insurance plan switches to secondary [supplemental] coverage.
“Alaska statute requires the AlaskaCare retiree plan become supplemental to Medicare when members turn 65. AlaskaCare will begin processing member’s health claims as if they have Medicare Part A & B on the first day of the month when they turn 65. [i.e. reduced coverage amount paid out for health expenses.]”
“If you don’t enroll in Medicare at age 65, AlaskaCare will estimate what Medicare would have paid and deduct that amount before paying benefits, regardless of any other insurance which you may have. You’ll have a larger part of the bill to pay.”
I believe this is the case for all private health insurance for retirees at 65. “Retiree Health Plans- Individual is age 65 or older and has an employer retirement plan: Medicare pays Primary, Retiree coverage pays secondary” Unless they are independently wealthy, as people age out and reach 65 – they more than likely enter the Medicare program as mandated or risk paying more money out of pocket.
I’ll sign up for it when I turn 65, but they’re not going to take any money out of my check. I’m still going to be on my spouses state provided insurance which is cheaper than the mandatory deduction from social security.
You will then have Medicare as your primary insurance, with your spouse insurance as secondary, and you will have money deducted for that Medicare from your SS check.
But don’t take my word for it Gregory, look it up or ask them. Heheh!
Not if you don’t sign up for type B. Type A is free.
Well this is another mail in the coffin as current spending and borrowing is not sustainable. We are going to crash hard and all the government handouts will go away as we are broke. Why isn’t the left complaining about out of control medical costs. Between freebies and lawyers the taxpayer is getting the shaft.
And how many on the right will continue to say “let the market decide” when it comes to healthcare? That’s the way its always been in this country and one of the reasons we have such a lousy healthcare system. Hospitals can charge whatever they want for anything they provide. They are unregulated medical cartels that can charge $50 for an aspirin or $100 for a bad of fluids. A few weeks ago I sliced the tip of my thumb off while cooking (a stupid mistake on my part to be sure); I spent about an hour in the ER with a very competent doctor who gave me one shot of lidocaine to numb my thumb and a single stitch to stop the bleeding. When the bill came in a few weeks later, it was $2700! Absolutely ridiculous. Thankfully I have insurance through my job but this is a classic example of how bloated the pricing is when it comes to medical care. When is something going to be done about this? I’ll tell you: never! Congress will take care of this when they find a solution for shoring up Social Security. In other words, don’t hold your breath!
You are clueless, as usual, cman.
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It is a incontrovertible fact that medical costs did not start rising steeply in the USA until the 1960s, with the significant entry of the federal government into the medical (and medical insurance) industry via Medicare and Medicaid. And with every growth of in the power of, and interference by, the federal government into the medical realm, costs have escalated and exploded concurrently.
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We need to remove the federal government from ALL involvement into medicine and medical care if we are ever to reduce this growing and unsustainable financial burden on the average American. Fortunately, the federal-medical-insurance system is already so overloaded, and so unsustainable, that its collapse is near at hand.
Anyone surprised at this theft of the taxpayers? This has been going on since 2020 plandemic. Welcome to crooked Biden’s America. Stealing elections to stealing from pockets, and the left still heralds him as the second coming of Christ what a cult.
I find it ironic how the Alaska healthcare complex jumped into the Covid emergency declaration narrative with both feet and now it looks like we are headed for a nationalized Medicaid system as a result. Yet many doctors, dentists, etc. in Alaska refuse to take Medicaid patients because the Medicaid program sets reimbursement rates which are much less than what the Alaska medical profession gouges er… charges. It’s not just Medicaid recipients though – medical costs for everyone in Alaska have been out of control for a long time. The differential is so excessive that for certain kinds of procedures, insurance programs in Alaska will pay travel and lodging for the patient and a companion and provide 100% coverage for the cost (ie no deductible or copay) to have the procedure performed outside Alaska.
I wonder if the Alaska medical community will realize that increased government funding for healthcare will lead to increased controls on their ability to gouge Alaska patients? They cheered when slick Willy Walker unilaterally expanded Obamacare in Alaska and radically increased the percentage of able-bodied Alaskans on Medicaid, so I guess they deserve what they get.
With the recent closures of the primary care AND the Senior care clinics at Ak Regional an extra 1000 medicare patients will “hit the streets” with most caregivers not taking any new medicare or at worse not taking any at all. This puts unfair burden on docs that do take it, which as an experienced pharma salesperson I could count on one hand.
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