More to Go Without Health Care

Posted by Cookie Jill at Skippy (who reminds us he's a fucking marsupial and NOT a fucking rodent):

hundreds of thousands of poor people across the nation will lose their state-subsidized health insurance in the coming months as legislators scramble to hold down the enormous — and ever-escalating — cost of medicaid.here in impoverished southeast missouri, nurses at a family health clinic stash drug samples for patients they know won't be able to afford their prescriptions after their coverage is eliminated this summer. doctors try to comfort waitresses, sales clerks and others who will soon lose coverage for medical, dental and mental healthcare.lawmakers say they feel for those who will lose coverage. But they say also that they have no alternative.

prenatal checkups, care in nursing homes and other health services for the poor and disabled account for more than 25% of total spending in many states. medicaid is often a state's single biggest budget item, more expensive even than K-12 education. and the price of services, especially prescription drugs and skilled nursing for the elderly, continues to soar.

the federal government helps pay for medicaid, but in the coming fiscal year, the federal contribution will drop by more than $1 billion because of changes in the cost-share formula. president bush has warned of far deeper cuts to come; he aims to reduce federal spending on medicaid by as much as $40 billion over the next decade. -latimes

Terrible, terrible news.