Surprise! Medicaid benefits children

By Alex Ayala

PLATTSBURGH, N.Y —Bernie Sanders has advocated for a single payer healthcare in during his run for the democratic nomination for president.

Many Republicans including Sen. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio already disagree with the idea of Obamacare, thinking that it will not provide antiquate coverage for Americans and add to much money to the

This same mindset is what some think of Medicaid.

"Medicaid gets a really bad rap," Harold Pollack a healthcare policy expert said in a Los Angles Time article. "

Medicaid is full of misconceptions that some have including it's for people who don't work, just for poor people who do not work and that it is not as good as private insurance.

"We have almost 13,000 people in Clinton County on Medicaid" said John Reddon Commissioner of Social Services in Plattsburgh. “The majority of those 13,000 is probably without looking I might guess 90 percent are working or elderly.”

A survey from 2003 to 2013 of more than 80,000 children by the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins showed that Medicaid gives just as good if not better health care coverage for children. 

In the survey, children under Medicaid were "significantly more likely to received preventive medical and dental coverage then private insurance."

Of the children surveyed, more than 57 percent have private insurance, 13.6 percent  had Medicaid, 18.4 percent were covered by the government's Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP and 10.8 percent were uninsured.

And with 28 percent of children in Plattsburgh living in poverty according to the 2014 Fiscal Profile of the City of Plattsburgh by the Office of the New York State Comptroller, knowing this shows the success of the program no just in America but in the Plattsburgh. 

So why do Republicans like Cruz and Rubio and those who dislike it want to see it shut down?

The main problem with programs such as Medicaid is money. Reddon said in Clinton County alone, Medicaid cost $17 million a year.

‘If you want to lower Medicaid, the employer has to give higher wages,” Reddon said. “They need to provide medical coverage. They need to not put the stigma.”

And because of the misconception with Medicaid, people think the coverage is nowhere close to the coverage the private sector.

“The coverage is good if not better.” said Reddon. It’s probably better than most private.”

One example Reddon gave is the Heroin and Opium epidemic in Plattsburgh.

He said many private insurance companies for inpatient ones have a fail first philosophy. You have to fail an outpatient then they will consider you for inpatient. Or if you are an inpatient, the patient might be allowed only two weeks.

With Medicaid, you are given whatever you needed for help until things get better.

So what can people do to get rid of the misconceptions for Medicaid?

“It’s community response,” Reddon said.

Education Reddon said is one of the ways to tackle the misconceptions.

 “Its health insurance for low income people but their working low income people,”Reddon said. “We have an ethical obligation to provide the best health coverage that we can and it shouldn’t be based on by poverty or wealth.”

--###--