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Monday, May 6, 2013

EXPAND MICHIGAN MEDICAID---AS STEP TOWARDS MEDICARE FOR ALL

 
 Let's follow the better medical instincts of this southern state representative & physician -- expand Medicaid to more of those in need of healthcare.  Someday soon,in this world's richest most blest country, a fully funded Medicare sysem should be available to all.
 
This week our local paper gave its editorial support to Medicaid Expansion-- health coverage for more low income Michigan citizens. On the same opinion page, the CEO’s of our three county hospitals wrote an op-ed arguing also that our Michigan legislature should pass a budget that will accept the federal funds for this expansion. The problem is, as State Rep. Paul Muxlow wrote me in recent correspondence,
 
“Unfortunately, Medicaid Expansion was not contained in the House of Representatives Omnibus budget for this year. However, there is still a possibility that Medicaid Expansion could find its way in the budget.  Unfortunately, Medicaid Expansion was not contained in the House of Representatives Omnibus budget for this year. However, there is still a possibility that Medicaid Expansion could find its way in the budget, following a conference committee, which will form to address differences contained in both the Senate's budget bill, and the House of Representatives' bill.   Doesn’t sound too hopeful.
 
Why wouldn’t our representatives want this federal money, to help in our state’s healthcare needs? They cite the eventual obligation that the state pay for 10% of the increased coverage [the feds still to pay the remaining 90%].  Let’s hope aversion to federal ObamaCare by our state’s Republican controlled legislature doesn’t cut off this access to healthcare for our less fortunate.
 



’ve worked twenty years as a healthcare provider in our Port Huron community, and have seen both doctors and patients struggle with cost of healthcare and ability to pay issues. We need to give low income people better access, and physicians more consistent reimbursement for care given {Medicaid routinely pays only about 50% of what the other insurers do}. My email response to Rep. Muxlow, who has been one who can put aside partisanship, is as follows.
Do you have any conference committee influence to put Medicaid expansion back in the MI budget? It would be good to see some Republican support for the common good--this increased access to Medicaid. It’s also consistent with the Right to Life we both support. Our Medicaid does not pay for abortion, and does pay for the pregnancy needs of the low income people we see in our Blue Water Pregnancy Care Center where I volunteer as a male advocate. I feel the budget should not pass until this Medicaid expansion is included. How will you vote?
 
I hope you, and your colleagues Rep. Andrea LaFontaine, Dan Lauwers, and Sen. Phil Pavlov also, along with all legislators, will find a way to vote positive for healthcare in St. Clair County, and Michigan as a whole.  As a scriptural incentive, it would be a good time for us all to read the Gospel account [Lk 16: 19-31] of the rich man and Lazarus at the Gate {whose sores never received care in his lifetime, except by licking dogs}.  The consequences for the the rich man never taking notice, were eternal.
 
Yours truly,
Michael McCarthy PA-C
 
Lazarus and the Rich Man ---        Before 


and After
 
 
 



"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” -- Dr. Martin Luther King
 
"The truth is that it is impossible to interpret Jesus as violent. Violence is contrary to the Kingdom of God. It is an instrument of the Antichrist. Violence never serves man, but dehumanizes him.”
--Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus Address, Sunday, March 11, 2012

"Apathy, in the face of relievable human misery, is radical evil."
        -- Fr. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy



Illumination by Kathy Brahney

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