Toolkit to ADAPTandRESIST to SaveMedicaid

https://goo.gl/qcGJcZ

ACTION PREPARATION – PEOPLE
Gather a group of people who are passionate about this issue. Make sure your group includes people who will be impacted by Medicaid cuts so that they can tell their story.

Reach out to people of color with disabilities and other multiply-marginalized (LGBTQI, other faiths, formerly incarcerated, immigrants) individuals with disabilities and support them taking public leadership roles in the actions. Medicaid is important to all of us and we need the public to understand that.

Tell people to bring a couple bottles of water and snacks. Also bring hard candy to suck on to help preserve your voices for chanting.

ACTION PREPARATION – SIGNS

Make signs to hold up during the action. Using permanent marker on white shower curtain liners (which can be found at a dollar store) works well because they do not wrinkle if you fold them the way paper does. Signs should say:


Senate GOP's ACA Repeal Bill Would Knock 22 Million Off Insurance: CBO

https://goo.gl/2iyRMu

The Senate Republicans' bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will result in 22 million fewer people having health insurance in 2026 compared with current law, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said Monday.

That number is a million shy of the estimate of 23 million people that the CBO estimated would be cut from the insurance rolls during that same period under the House version of the bill, known as the American Health Care Act. That bill passed the House on May 4. The Senate bill -- known as the Better Care Reconciliation Act -- that was scored Monday by the CBO is a revised version of the discussion draft released last week.

The Senate repeal-and-replace bill would also cut the deficit by $321 billion through 2026, which is $202 billion more than the reduction in the deficit under the House bill, the CBO said. The reductions include a $772 billion cut in Medicaid spending -- a little lower than the $800 billion Medicaid cut in the House version of the bill -- and $408 billion in reduced subsidies for individual enrollees in the health insurance exchanges. Those spending reductions are partially offset by $541 billion in tax cuts and $210 billion in reduced penalties collected from employers and the uninsured, as well as $107 billion in increased spending to help some enrollees reduce their premiums and for other purposes.

The Senate bill has many similarities to the House bill, including the use of per-capita caps to lower Medicaid spending (with an option for states to chose block grants instead), the repeal of the ACA's individual and employer mandates, and a provision allowing states to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients. However, while the House bill would allow insurers to levy a 1-year premium surcharge to enrollees in the individual health insurance marketplace who had a gap in insurance coverage of at least 63 days, the Senate bill did not include that option.


How the American Health Care Act’s Changes to Medicaid Will Affect Hospital Finances in Every State

For Michigan, uncompensated care will increase by 134%, and Medicaid revenues will drop by 21% between 2017 and 2026. the duration of the AHCA....
https://goo.gl/17Qh1e

The American Health Care Act (AHCA), as passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, will reduce federal spending on Medicaid by more than $834 billion over the next 10 years. And the recently released Senate bill appears to cut Medicaid even more deeply. In addition to repealing the Medicaid expansion, the bills place caps on the federal dollars that states receive to provide health insurance to millions of low-income Americans, including the elderly, disabled, and people with opioid addiction.

We modeled the impact of this loss of Medicaid funding on U.S. hospitals and found that, over the next 10 years, hospitals in all states, but especially hospitals in Medicaid expansion states, will see an increase in uncompensated care—a treatment or service not paid for by an insurer or patient. We also saw declines in hospitals’ operating margins, particularly among hospitals in expansion states. Rural hospitals in nonexpansion states also would face marked operating margin decreases.

In the interactive state-by-state maps below, we present the estimated impact of the Medicaid provisions in the House-passed AHCA on the finances of all U.S. hospitals. The hospitals in the District of Columbia and the 31 states that expanded Medicaid are projected to see a 78 percent increase in uncompensated care costs between 2017 and 2026. Eleven of these states will see uncompensated care costs at least double between 2017 and 2026. For example, Nevada hospitals will see a 98 percent increase, West Virginia a 122 percent increase, and Kentucky a 165 percent increase.

In addition to growing uncompensated care, our projections indicate that under the AHCA, hospitals in most states will experience a decline in Medicaid revenues, even though the law restores Medicaid disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments. Hospitals in Medicaid expansion states may experience a 14 percent drop in Medicaid revenues between 2017 and 2026, compared to a 3 percent anticipated reduction among hospitals in the 19 states that did not expand. Some states may see more dramatic drops. Arkansas hospitals, for example, are estimated to see a 31 percent decline in Medicaid revenue over the next 10 years.


The Misunderstood Medicaid Program Behind Yesterday’s Disability “Die In”

https://goo.gl/aUHdVJ

Watching coverage of ADAPT’s “die-in” in front of Sen. McConnell’s officeyesterday, it seemed a lot of people were a bit confused about what, exactly, the people on the screen getting dragged out of their wheelchairs were protesting. They were opposed to the Senate health care bill because… something about Medicaid cuts?

In their statements and interviews, protesters mentioned a specific, and widely misunderstood, set of Medicaid services that many seniors and people with disabilities rely upon to live independently.

Medicaid policy can get really complicated, so here is my best attempt at a simple explanation.

When most people think about health care, they think about doctors and hospitals and tests and meds. But what if you are getting older and you need help with daily tasks like bathing and cooking? Or you live with a physical disability and need help getting out of bed and getting dressed for work in the morning? Or you have an intellectual disability and need a little help with a variety of daily tasks?

If you need these kinds of “non-medical” services, you generally have a few options:

  1. get services from informal caregivers (usually family)
  2. pay out of pocket (this usually requires a lot of money)
  3. live in a nursing home
  4. try to get services from community providers

Insurance and Medicare don’t cover the last two options, so if you don’t have a lot of money or family/friends able to help, then Medicaid is probably your only option.

The cost of Medicaid is shared between the federal government and states. Imagine that the federal government is a mom and her teenage son, who works a few hours a week after-school, is a state. At the end of every month, Mom looks at how much her son spends on gas and pays him 60% of the total cost. This is (very roughly) how Medicaid works now. If he drives more, he gets more gas money, if he drives less he gets less.

Suppose Mom decides that she’s going to try something different. Last month she paid him $200 for gas, so from now on she’s going to pay $200 a month no matter how much gas he uses. Think of this as the Medicaid proposal in the House and Senate health care bills. Right now, a state is reimbursed for any given Medicaid recipient based on how much that person’s care actually cost. The American Health Care Act would give states a set amount per Medicaid recipient, regardless of how much that person’s care cost in a given year. As with all health care policy, the actual structure is more complicated, but this is the general idea.