MEDICAID CHANGES COULD LEAD TO THOUSANDS OF DEATHS, STUDY WARNS
A Yale study is warning Americans that thousands of lives could be lost if new Medicare and Medicaid changes take effect.
As the United States looks to reform its Medicaid and Medicare programs and save money in the process, lawmakers have proposed several updates to the healthcare options. Two key initiatives include increasing the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 67 and adding a work requirement for Medicaid coverage.
The House of Representatives' Republican Study Committee proposed raising the age in a 2022 report, while adding work requirements has been a topic of repeated debate during yearly federal budget discussions.
Medicaid has already adopted a new rule that reversed the prior pandemic guidance that states keep current Medicaid beneficiaries in the program this year. During the de-enrollment process, states have removed millions of recipients across the country due to the new policy.
"As we've seen with the unwinding of the pandemic-era Medicaid continuous coverage rule, some people who are still eligible for Medicaid are losing coverage for 'procedural' reasons, meaning the states don't have enough information to determine whether they're still eligible," Louise Norris, health policy analyst for medicareresources.org, told Newsweek. "The same sort of problems could arise with a widespread Medicaid work requirement, with people losing coverage due to reporting issues, despite working enough hours to qualify."
The Yale study found that if the other changes go through, the number of uninsured people will skyrocket.
"Without insurance people might forgo health care when they need it or ration prescription medications," Alison Galvani, the Burnett and Stender Families Professor of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases) at Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) and senior author of the study, said in the report.
"That can cause a condition to become both more serious and ultimately more costly. In the case of infectious diseases, forgoing health care can lead to transmission to other people that may have been prevented."
Since Medicare offers coverage for Americans aged 65 and older and Medicaid supports those with low incomes, both programs serve some of the most financially vulnerable populations in the country. In 2023, that comprised 160 million Americans.
If the United States raised the Medicare age, the Yale study found roughly 10,000, or 9,646 lives would be lost yearly.
In considering raising the age, the Congressional Budget Office has proposed either increasing the age by two or three months until the eligibility age reaches 67. But Yale said that would ultimately lead to an extra 17,244 deaths during that change.
"The elderly are those who need health care the most and any delay to receiving health care at 65 will have a disproportionate impact on lives lost," Galvani said.
Meanwhile, if Medicaid work requirements were passed, 613 extra deaths would be recorded.
The study's authors say the end of continuous Medicaid enrollment is also likely to create problems, and 7,900 extra lives would be lost.
Those with chronic illnesses could also see major issues if they lost their health insurance. People living with diabetes and heart disease would lose access to constant care, or even their insulin medication.
According to Yale, 456,966 people with diabetes could lose their healthcare because of the end of Medicaid's continuous enrollment. Additionally, 325,613 seniors would be without healthcare if the new age restrictions went into effect.
"These changes would have effects that ripple throughout the health care system and society, shifting costs from the federal government to state governments and employers," Galvani said. "Working in the field of public health, it can be frustrating to see policymakers propose strategies that ignore evidence-based solutions capable of saving lives, booting prosperity, and reducing health care costs."
Falling on Deaf Ears
Researchers are hoping lawmakers take into account the death numbers before implementing any major changes for Medicare and Medicaid, but so far, it has fallen on deaf ears.
Galvani and other researchers previously proposed a single-payer universal health care model that would save more than 68,000 lives and $450 billion each year.
Meanwhile, the plan to raise the eligibility age for Medicare would only save $25.5 billion over the span of five years and lead to many deaths, the authors said.
"It's disheartening to see people in positions of power who have access to all of this information argue that retractions in health care are for the benefit of the country," she said. "If policymakers want to save lives and costs, our analyses have shown single-payer universal health care is the solution."
Christopher Westfall, the founder of Senior Savings Network, said an affordable deductible for seniors is considered $9,450 in 2024 for one person and $18,900 for a couple. But seniors without tax premium credits often pay $850 to $1,300 monthly in premiums just to keep their plans.
"The financial barriers of high deductibles and high premiums totaling approximately $20,000 per person create barriers to health coverage that will definitely keep seniors from receiving lifesaving medications and treatments if the Medicare age is increased," Westfall told Newsweek.
Many seniors who would be forced to take on private insurance would also be forced to deal with restrictive networks and extra prior authorization rules.
"These plans create red tape for sick seniors and their doctors to try and navigate before medical treatment," Westfall said. "There is no doubt that raising the Medicare age will lead to deaths in our senior population."
Related Articles
2024-04-23T16:12:49Z dg43tfdfdgfd