This is very bad news for people relying on Medicaid in Missouri. Medicaid is the program that pays for medication and in-home care for people with the least income. Medicaid is the health program that serves the most poor and needy of the state's children, disabled, and aged.
Click on the title for a link to the Missouri division of budget and planning . Of special interest is the HB-10 Mental health budget on the right of that webpage. Thanks to someone using her "noodle" for this tip!
Over 90,000 people will loose their medical benefits. Let's look at what that means: (and according to one friend, Molly, she knows of a case exactly like this) It means many people with a mental disorder will not be able to afford their medication. Some pills cost as much as $8.00 per pill per day, or nearly $3,000 a year. Now let's say that a person who has been cut goes off medication, because their Medicaid got cut. They were doing OK under medication. With no medication, in a psychotic state, they go and rob a convenience store. Now they are in prison, costing the state $30,000 per year in funds (plus court costs). Over 10 years that works out to $300,000 for the unmedicated/imprisoned version. The cost out of jail or institution is only $30,000 for the person who had Medicaid to stabilize his mental disorder. Looks to me like society is worse off, and the State of Missouri just got $270,000 deeper in debt. So first we de-institutionalize people, then we give them medical assistance, then we take Medicaid away, then they can be re-institutionalized. Only this time, it's not a mental hospital, it could be a prison.
Sometimes budget cuts look good short term, but have terrible consequences long-term.
2 comments:
Thank you so much, noodle! Do you just find this stuff out on Google? I'm astonished by what you come up with! I'll use that on the BLOG. thanks!
That is sooo, sooo, cool! Thank you ever-so-much!
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