For the last six positions, we talked a lot about all the factors that are moving from transitioning to a child with special needs (covered by the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT) program) for adults with special needs - especially a tragic event for low-income families. We talked about the states that reduced the Medicaid expansion offered by Obamacare, and about the failures of the Medicaid program that make the unexpanded version unsuccessful of so many low-income adults with disabilities. We talked about the costs that this may have for families who have to pay for their newborns with disabilities because of their pockets.
We did not say how bad these failures are for all of us. Not only in some moral and hopeless form, but in terms of actual tax money from our pockets.
Emergency treatment is right ...
Treatment of emergency situations in medicine became a universal right in the United States in 1986 - if someone, insured or not, appears in an ER hospital with a life-threatening emergency, the ER is legally obligated to treat them until their life is no longer Danger. If this person is not insured, he has no money, and the hospital cannot convince Medicaid that they should be covered, the hospital uses an absolutely correct and legitimate technique called “price shifting”. in fact, prescribe Medicaid anyway, charging more slowly for all the other services Medicaid provides.
... what we all pay for
It seems that this may be a lossless situation for the taxpayer, but this could not be further from the truth, and here's why: medical emergencies cost an incredibly larger amount than medical care. The cost to keep a person with severe asthma on a potential inhaler can be several thousand dollars each year, plus another twelve thousand for a couple of interventions. The cost of resuscitation, treatment, observation and, finally, the release of a person who did not treat severe asthma, made their sister call 911 and get paramedics will easily exceed $ 100,000.
And this is only for one such event. Many relatively common forms of disability, severe asthma among them, usually put their patients in the hospital several times every year when they are not treated. Thus, the cost of coverage of one of these families for Medicaid will sometimes be $ 20,000, and the cost that does not cover one of these families can easily exceed $ 520,000. When you multiply a half-million dollar difference at a rough estimate of 25,000 Americans who have serious violations and are not covered by Medicaid or any other insurance, you suddenly look at the $ 12.5 billion that American taxpayers pay, states can slap their backs to reduce costs. by reducing the coverage of young people aging from the EPDST program.
Fiscal responsibility
A decade ago, renegade researcher Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article in The New York Times entitled One Million Murray, describing how one particular homeless person cost the city of Las Vegas more than a million dollars in hospital expenses over a 10-year period. Starting with this article, several organizations have recognized the value of simple pay for people who cannot pay for themselves. For example, in the state of Utah, the Housing program simply provides low-income homes for the chronically homeless, charging a meager $ 50 a month. What for? Since the study showed that one chronically homeless person cost the state an average of $ 19,000 per year in prison, hospital and other services, but it cost only $ 8,000 a year to give them a home and appoint them as an employee.
There are hundreds of similar examples throughout the country: cities, counties, and sometimes all states that understand that simply providing services to the people who need it most is a truly financially responsible option in the long run. And although you may be able to make a pretty solid argument with respect to bootstraps and pull-ups when it comes to homelessness or drug use, it’s quite a solid bet that you can’t really ask someone with a chronic disability to & man to cope with. by themselves, making him not only financially responsible, but also morally responsible.
