Just saw a few different news reports concerned #Medicaid future.

Lots of talk about overhauling and/or getting rid of the Medicaid program. Other than the needs of people below the poverty line, the disabled require Medicaid. Over 50 million Americans have some kind of disability. Over 35 million were eligible voters. Most people with disabilities require some kind of home care in order not to be institutionalized. Medicare and other insurances don’t cover ongoing health aide services we require to have our basic needs met and be able to participate in life.

If you cut or take away Medicaid from the disabled you are not only hurting that group, but you are taking away millions of job opportunities from Home Health Aides. Then those disabled people either get institutionalized, stuck in a back room of a family member or end up homeless etc. Now the ones with the family as care takers are burdened. Depending on the level of care needed, the family member doing the care taking may not be able to work. Being institutionalized costs a lot of money too and not all insurances cover this or will only cover a fraction. Where does the rest of the money come from?

Then take all these disabled people who are restricted to a facility: many will not be able to get out in the world the same as when they have their own place where they are the boss of their own life. They will not go out and contribute to the economy as they did before. Depression rises and more antidepressants are pumped into them to keep them artificially happy in their cages. More expenses for the facility and more out-of-pocket for the family.

The same goes for the person now living in a bedroom taken care by a family member. Sure, there’s way more freedom in that situation, but none the less it’s different living under someone else’s roof when they are volunteering to take care of you. Then if the disabled person wants to go out and have fun and stay out late etc. They have to do so with lots of guilt bc it’s way different to have an employee who’s job it is to assist with that vs adding to the work load of the person who’s taken you in and is physically taking care of you. I’m thinking antidepressants enter the lives of both people here. More expenses plus side effects which require other drugs to deal with them! The cycle goes on…

I’m sure you can do the math on the homeless disabled person. I’ve seen quite a number of wheelchair bound homeless people. It is truly a scary thought!

This is a drop in the bucket on the subject specific to the disabled and Medicaid, but the bottom line is this is a group that in most cases can not live with out assistance for their most basic needs. I’m fine if the system is fixed to weed out the scam artists who don’t have medical disability needs. It’s very tricky though bc many disabilities are not always easy for a social worker to know how to see. Scam artists prey on this and those with more invisibility to their disability suffer the consequences.

Obviously it should never get cut. I mean what’s the plan when you take that away? Hitler got all cute and convinced the country that people like me were just existing and only a drain on the economy. He had the full support of the country as he “mercy” killed hundreds of thousands of humans with disabilities. When anyone suggests cutting Medicaid they may not realize they are saying a disabled persons life is worthless.

Before anyone thinks of overhauling Medicaid… they really need to fully understand: What are the medical/disability needs for the disabled that they cannot get covered elsewhere.

Ok, rant over…lol