| Today's Feature Parking Vote Set
For Tonight.
The City Council is scheduled
to hear the second reading, and vote, this
evening on the proposed temporary ordinance that
would remove the two-hour parking restriction
from the downtown area. The proposal would
eliminate the restriction during the months of
January and February. If enacted, the ordinance
would have to be revisited by the Council to make
it permenant.
During the last Council and
previous Committee meetings, four members have
spoke against lifting the restriction. Three
members of the Public Safety Committee in
Committee meeting to recommend the ordinance to
the full Council. Committee Chair Bill Welch
voted against the recommendation in Committee,
but stated in the last Council meeting he would
vote for the proposal when it came up in second
reading.
This proposal is coming before
the Council as an ordinance and as such requires
six votes to be enacted.
The City Council meets every
second and fourth Tuesday of the month in City
Hall at 7:30 p.m.
What Health
Care Reform Means for: Medicaid Recipients
by Sabrina Shankman and Olga
Pierce, ProPublica
Sarah Goodwin, 25
Location: Harvey’s Lake,
Pa. Health Care Status: Medicaid recipient
Household Income: $0, but she has a Social
Security application pending
When Sarah Goodwin, 25, was
diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, she was
a senior in college in Maine. After running out
of savings to cover her health costs, and unable
to work because of her condition, Goodwin went on
Medicaid.
Her
story:
Sarah Goodwin, who has chronic
fatigue syndrome and a slew of immune
deficiencies, relies on Medicaid for health
coverage.
Medicaid serves low-income and
disabled individuals, with the federal government
paying for about 60 percent of the program (with
a temporary boost of that percentage included in
the stimulus bill) and states paying for the
rest. Goodwin has experienced firsthand the wide
leeway that states are given in determining who
is eligible and what services are covered.
In Maine, Goodwin was able to
get only temporary Medicaid, which meant she was
constantly reapplying, and having to fight to get
the medications she needed. Two years later, she
has moved from Maine to Pennsylvania, where she
says she’s had a better experience.
"The Medicaid people here are really
helpful," she says.
Most of the Medicaid-covered
services that Goodwin uses are free, with some
doctors charging a $3 co-pay.
"I’m really happy
with the Medicaid that I have right now, and I
would hope that it would stay the same," she
says.
For those, like Goodwin, who
have chronic conditions, Medicaid can be a
lifeline.
"If I ever miraculously
get better, I’m still going to be
uninsurable," she says.
What changes would mean for
her:
Goodwin has seen the two sides
of Medicaid: first in Maine, where the program
didn’t meet her needs, then in Pennsylvania,
where it did. Some states offer coverage for
children from families with incomes as high as
three times the federal poverty line. Other
states cut off eligibility at 100 percent of the
poverty line. Some states cover childless adults,
some don’t. Physical therapy may be covered
with a $1 co-payment – or not at all. This
variability among states is one of the major
complaints about Medicaid, and is one that the
Senate and House health care bills attempt to
remedy.
Both the Senate and House bills
would require all states to have the same income
cutoff for Medicaid.
The Senate bill would expand
Medicaid to cover those with incomes up to 133
percent of the federal poverty line (about
$14,000 for a single person) starting in 2014,
while the House bill would expand it to 150
percent, or about $16,000, a year earlier. The
Congressional Budget Office estimates that both
bills would result in as many as 15 million new
Medicaid enrollees by 2019.
Both bills would make
low-income adults, like Goodwin, eligible for
Medicaid coverage, even if they don’t have
children. Currently, only 15 states offer such
coverage — which the states pay for on their
own. And many of those states have closed their
programs to new enrollees because of funding
concerns.
To address disparities among
states in benefits for childless adults, both
bills would define a minimum benefits package,
which would include mental health services. The
House bill goes one step further, requiring that
beneficiaries be offered preventive services and
vaccines with no co-payment.
The biggest difference between
the House and Senate bills regards another
disparity among states that can have a big effect
on how easy it is to get care. Medicaid as a
whole tends to pay less than other insurers for
health services – and in some states a lot
less. This means it may be difficult to find
doctors willing to accept Medicaid patients.
To avoid this, the House bill
would incrementally increase Medicaid payments
for primary care to the higher rates paid by the
Medicare program. The Senate bill has no such
increase.
Medicaid is already notoriously
expensive, accounting for about one-fifth of all
state spending. Critics of the expansion have
argued that expanding the program is an unfunded
mandate that would break states’ already
strained budgets.
Under both bills, the federal
government would pay a higher share of the cost
of new Medicaid enrollees than it pays for people
in the program now.
In the House bill, the federal
government would pay the full cost of coverage
for new enrollees until 2015, when the percentage
that Washington covers would be set at about 90
percent.
The Senate bill would pay the
full cost of new enrollees for the years 2014 to
2016, then gradually adjust the share that
Washington pays. From 2019 onward, the federal
government would pay 32.3 percentage points more
of the cost of each new enrollee. (This would be
about 90 percent on average, but with
considerable variation from state to state.)
There’s a catch though:
States that already offer coverage to adults
beyond federal requirements would get less
federal help in the years before 2019. Not
surprisingly, these states aren’t happy
about this, arguing that they are being penalized
for their efforts to cover more uninsured
residents.
Though the changes would not be
cheap for states or the federal government, for
Goodwin, they would likely mean easier access to
a bolstered Medicaid program.
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