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Medicaid Protects all Working Families

Republicans are voting on a bill this week to end health care coverage for 22 million American, 15 million of whom will lose coverage from a 26% cut to Medicaid.

A recent story illustrates why Medicaid is an important program for all working families. It profiles a retiree who saved throughout her career and planned carefully for retirement:

Recently widowed, she had a net worth of roughly $600,000 as of 1998. Her health was excellent, and she dutifully purchased a long-term care insurance policy that would cover three years of nursing home costs should she ever need help. Watching over it all was her daughter, a medical social worker, and her son-in-law, a financial planner.

However, a dementia diagnosis and 5 years of nursing home care wiped out her entire life savings. It was her state’s Medicaid program that ensured she continued receiving care and treatment.

This is the same Medicaid that our representatives in Washington are aiming to cut right now. While there is no telling how the debate over health care legislation will end, it ought to matter plenty to everyone who hopes to grow old and is not certain that their savings could last for decades. While many people don’t realize it until well into old age, it is Medicaid, not Medicare, that pays for most nursing home and community or home-based care for older adults who run out of money.

Medicaid is the backstop that retirees across the country rely on when they need long-term care. Republican cuts to Medicaid would be a financial disaster for older Americans.

  • One in three Americans turning 65 will need nursing home care at some point.
  • Nursing home care costs $82,000 per year on average in 2016, which is three times the annual income of most seniors.
  • Medicaid covers care for 6 out of every 10 nursing home residents.

Please call 1-855-980-2280 or click here to tell your Senator to oppose the Republican health care repeal bill and this devastating attack on health care.

Links:

Newest Senate Health Care Overhaul Would Increase Uninsured By 22 Million, CBO Says (NPR, July 20, 2017)

One Woman’s Slide From Middle Class to Medicaid (New York Times, July 7, 2017)

Medicaid’s Role in Nursing Home Care (Kaiser Family Foundation, June 20, 2017)