At the start of COVID, Congress passed a law requiring states to maintain enrollment for anyone then on Medicaid. This produced a sharp increase in Medicaid enrollments until early 2023, when the requirement was ended. Since then, Medicaid has been unwinding and returning to normal operation, which means everyone has to qualify anew each year. Here's what that looks like:
From the start of Obamacare through 2017, Medicaid enrollment increased by 13 million. Over the next three years enrollments declined 3 million, partly because the economy was good and partly because the Trump administration reduced funding for outreach.
During the pandemic enrollment increased 23 million. Of that, we've lost 13 million since the unwinding began.
But overall there's good news here. The unwinding is just about finished and we're still at an enrollment of 10 million higher than when we began. All told, we've added 20 million people to Medicaid since Obamacare started up. That's a lot of health care.
NOTE: The total numbers in the chart are for both Medicaid and CHIP. Of that, about 7 million is CHIP, and it hasn't changed much. The increases and decreases are almost all Medicaid.
thank god our trumpist overlords will put an end to that
All those people need to be reminded that if Trump wins all their medical coverage goes away.
It's MONSTROUS! All these people ... getting health care? Who wouldn't have had it otherwise?!? It's a SCANDAL! An OUTRAGE!! We have to bring a stop to this IMMEDIATELY!! What will become of society? [Narrator: healthier.] Our economy? [Narrator: healthier.] Ohhh it's a DISASTER!!11!!
If these people really think abortion is murder why don't they have laws by which they can charge people convicted of rape or incest with murder if that act resulted in an abortion?
If these people really believe in the Bible, why don't they condemn adulterers, eg the guy who cheated on his first wife with his second wife, his second wife with his third wife, and his third wife with a porn star and his
rapesexual battery victim?Truly, it is a mystery...
You forgot the no doubt numerous other affairs or one night or one hour stands that no doubt went on through all those marriages. We do know about a couple in his last marriage, and he was already an older guy (59) by then.
It's a cult.
It's not about the sin, it's about the redemption. Remember how Trump fell to his knees at that one rally, confessed his many sins, and begged for forgiveness with tears streaming down his face, promising never to lie or cheat or steal ever again?
Yeah, me neither. These people don't believe the Bible. They don't believe in Jesus. They don't believe in anything. Witness how fast they dropped any pretense at caring about personal virtue in a leader the second Trump came along and promised them the one thing they really *do* care about: power.
iirc- Coincides with Moore's 2007 "Sicko" documentary which iirc said we had 20ish million folks who needed health care
Fits the logic of Dems vs GOP. If you've got yours (job, retirement and health care), and you don't care what happens to HaveNots, the GOP economy makes perfect sense
otoh it's much more complicated and expensive to take care of everyone, rather than just tell HaveNots they have "their freedom" to choose their own soup kitchens and ERs.
Not so complicated and expensive that every other OECD country can’t manage to run systems of universal health care; and countries even less well off than that.
As Ken said.... it's actually much more complicated and expensive to implement and manage the fractured, hybrid system that the US has in place.
But the central part of the marketing/propaganda campaign that keeps the US system in place is to convince everyone otherwise.
The US chooses this not because its cheaper or less complicated....we choose it because many people benefit ($$) from the more expensive, more complicated system.
343.5M = US population size in 2023
94.4 / 343.5 = 27% of population
This is one of those indicators that tends to reflect that there are two economies in the US. Democrats, while big (and often the only) supporters of social welfare programs, ought not to deride the lived experience of those in the other economy.
What does this mean? Just generic dunking on generic democratic voters?
Overall it's good news, but that decline of 13 million in the last eighteen months has been suggested as one element of the headwinds that Biden had been facing in his reelection bid: plenty of working class folks who have seen real wage increases have both seen their pandemic-era cash holdings dwindle and have lost healthcare coverage. Thirteen million is a pretty big number, especially in country with a 50-50 electorate.
(('m not suggesting none of those thirteen million folks have found alternate coverage via employment or other means, but it's a fair bet many have not.)
Getting medicaid in 2021 and losing it in 2023 doesn't seem likely to me to have a big impact on ones attidudes toward government and the political parties.
Over roughly the same time period, ACA healthcare (obamacare) and Medicare have added over 10 million new members. Employment is higher as well.
Its not clear that this was really a big headwind for Biden.
I was thinking the same thing. If you're making just enough to not qualify for Medicaid, you're almost certainly eligible for a low or no-premium ACA marketplace plan that is probably a lot better than Medicaid in terms of how many providers accept it, etc.
People were mad at Biden because gas and eggs and rent are expensive. All things the US president is able to do precisely nothing about.
Below is the copy from a pro-Trump mailer sent to my house this week:
"We finally beat Medicare" -JOE BIDEN, 6/27/24
KAMALA HARRIS.& JOE BIDEN "BEAT MEDICARE" TO DEATH
The piece doesn’t explain why ‘socialists’ would want to kill Medicare.
It appears the flyer was attempting to target people who don't know anything and don't think. Most of them are already Trump voters, but I guess some rightwing PAC figured that there were probably a few more out there they could snag...
It’s crazy how we waste money on stuff. I know this is trivial in the scheme of things but I just have to ask, “Why?”
https://www.reuters.com/science/scientists-propose-warming-up-mars-by-using-heat-trapping-glitter-2024-08-09/
Yes, it’s interesting and cool, but lots of wasteful things are interesting. Oh well. Spend it on helping people here and now.
From the paper, "Funding: We acknowledge that we received no external funding in support of this research.". So how did it waste any money? Further, the methods would be directly applicable to the earth when (and it is when) the sh t hits the fan for global warming. There is no longer any possibility of us meeting the goal of keeping warming to under 2 degrees Celsius. (Thanks conservative professional liars.)
Right. The implications of this research, though, involves doing stuff on Mars. And these really smart people are pursuing some end that is about as useful as, well… not useful. Wasteful. At least in the short term… next 100 years.
Dumb guy on internet screams about random, small dollar, long-term research. Things I dont understand are wasteful!!! Thinking long-term is very, very bad!!!
Very original stuff here. Piles and piles of stupid......
People have hobbies. If someone chooses to use their spare time speculating about warming Mars, that's less antisocial than many hobbies.
I wasn't sure what CHIP was exactly.
The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP):
Provides health coverage to eligible children through both Medicaid and separate CHIP programs
Children eligible for CHIP are in families with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid, but too low to afford private coverage.
Is managed by states according to federal requirements
Is funded by states and the federal government
Our health insurance "system" really is a Rube Goldberg assembly of patches, all bits and pieces passed by Democrats over the years to try to get people covered over the resistance of Republicans.
States still without Medicaid expansion:
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
So basically the Confederacy, as usual. And racism is no doubt a big part of it, but I guess I'm wrong about that because Senator Tim Scott of one of those states has assured us that "America is not a racist country." And he's a Black guy representing a Confederate state so he must know.
Meanwhile, what is wrong with you, Wisconsin? You aren't even Indiana.
What's wrong with Wisconsin?
US binge drinking map,
https://vividmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/heavy-drinking.jpg
US bars vs grocery stores map,
https://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/assets/4565693/us_bars_groceries.jpg
Until recently, Wisconsin was brutally gerrymandered by Republicans, preventing progressive legislation from passing even though popular majorities and the Dem governor favored stuff like expanding Medicaid.
Though that number of states is down since a number of states pushed through ballot initiatives that kicked in after 2020.