Paragon Health Institute, a leader in healthcare research and market-based policy proposals, in response to continued fraud and wasteful spending it has uncovered in the Medicaid program, is enhancing its website with a new section that equips policymakers and researchers with key research aimed at improving and preserving the Medicaid program. This new section —the issue library — centralizes access to key Medicaid research and findings while organizing its content around three major issues:
- Ending Medicaid’s discrimination against the most vulnerable Americans — pregnant women, the elderly, the disabled, and children.
- Stopping Medicaid money laundering.
- Emphasizing Americans’ desire for commonsense Medicaid reforms.
The issue library highlights Paragon’s keystone research papers including Medicaid Financing Reform and Addressing Medicaid Money Laundering, as well as polling that the organization conducted to understand public opinion on Medicaid.
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Medicaid was originally designed to split the financial responsibilty for the program between states and the federal government. However, this burden shifted over the years from states to the federal taxpayer. While traditionally the federal government paid about 60% of the cost of each state’s Medicaid program for traditional enrollees like children, the elderly, and people with disabilities, changes via the Affordable Care Act (ACA) introduced a new policy where the federal government covers 90% of Medicaid costs for able-bodied, working-age adults. This change has pulled health care resources away from vulnerable Americans while incentivizing the states to prioritize care for able-bodied Americans.
Worse, states have taken advantage of the open-ended federal reimbursement for state Medicaid spending by colluding with health care providers — like hospital systems and insurance companies — through legalized money laundering schemes. These schemes include questionable provider taxes and intergovernmental transfers that can allow states to offload their entire Medicaid financing responsibility to federal taxpayers while helping big in-state health care providers to get rich. Among the worst offenders is California. The Golden State uses money laundering schemes to funnel tax dollars from hard-working Americans in every other state to fund “free” healthcare for illegal immigrants. Paragon’s work is having an impact combating this practice: The policy brief “California’s Insurance-Tax Shuffle” (produced jointly with the Economic Policy Innovation Center) has been widely featured by Fox News and is provoking debate over Medicaid cost-shifting.
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Americans want commonsense Medicaid reforms, and the numbers show it. Paragon’s polling of a representative sample of 1,000 registered voters found:
- More than 80% of respondents agree that able-bodied, working age adults should have to work to continue receiving Medicaid benefits.
- Nearly two-in-three Americans say that Medicaid should not pay more for able-bodied adults than it does for pregnant women, children, the elderly, and those with disabilities.
- More than four-in-five agree that “Medicaid payments to health care providers [should not] be higher than Medicare payments.”
Paragon’s president Brian Blase remains committed to producing and promoting commonsense Medicaid reform. “We must end the federal discrimination against the most vulnerable,” he said on X (formerly Twitter). “It’s immoral and terrible economics for Washington to pay states a higher percentage of funding for able-bodied, childless adults than pregnant women, kids, seniors, and the disabled.”
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Source – businesswire
