Medicaid

Medicaid ( Medical Assistance ) is a health care program for groups of people with low incomes, children, the elderly and people with disabilities in the United States, which is organized by the individual states and paid equally with the federal government. The receipt of Medicaid benefits is means-tested.

History

Medicaid was created in 1965 by legislation with the Social Security Act of 1965, during the Great Society, a supplement to the 1935 introduced social security system of the United States. Each state has its own Medicaid program, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to centrally monitor. The individual states organize their Medicaid programs vary widely. Partial private insurance companies are responsible for carrying out, sometimes takes the state of care providers such as doctors directly under contract. The program can be found in every state have a different name, are examples of "Medi -Cal " in California, " MassHealth " in Massachusetts, and " TennCare " in Tennessee.

In 1985, 19.2 million citizens, or 8.1 percent of the U.S. population has a Medicaid insurance coverage, 1994, there were already 33.5 million, and by 2001, according to CMS over 46 million citizens who received Medicaid benefits, 2006 finally, 57.8 million citizens, including 30.2 million children.

Finance and Accounting

Is funded Medicaid by controlling the federal government, the states and the municipalities, the mixed financing is regulated so that the federal government contributes 50 to 80 percent of the cost, depending on the per capita income of each state, it is in the range of Medicaid so low and rich states are. Medicaid is in the national budgets of most states, one of the largest budget items, an average of one quarter of expenditure going into this program. 1994 used 33.5 million citizens Medicaid and the cost of the federal government amounted to 77.4 billion U.S. dollars, the state 58.2 billion U.S. dollars.

The remuneration of medical services determine the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services at the basis of proposals of the American Medical Association Specialty Society Relative Value settled Scale Update Committee ( RUC ).

Medicare

Although their names sound similar, are Medicaid and Medicare different concepts based: while the latter is directed within the health system of the United States rather to people over 64 years, while contributions, deductibles and preliminary knows as a classic health insurance, Medicaid is a social welfare -like performance, a significant depletion of the recipient requires as a criterion for the need, but if necessary can also be satisfied both criteria. Thus, approximately 6.5 million Americans are members in both programs simultaneously, that is, they both meet the inclusion criteria for Medicaid as well as Medicare.

Long-term care

In the U.S., essentially there is no way to insure against the financial burden of a long -term care. In most cases, sufferers finance the stay in the nursing home, therefore, so long as they can from their own resources, because if they are only used up, so they do not have their own financial resources more can take Medicaid in claim ( subsidiarity).