Medicaid Program in the United States
Medicaid is a program for people and families with few resources and low income. Both the states as well as the federal government fund it. Medicaid services are states managed. They are only offered to United States citizens and individuals who are legally permanent residents of the United States of America. The targeted individuals are adults of low income, their children, as well as the disabled. This service is the greatest funding source to medical and healthcare services for the low-income earners in the United States. It is a federal funded social insurance program, which focuses entirely on the disabled elderly population (Manski, Pepper & Citro 1998).
Medicaid ensures that the low asset individuals, children, pregnant women, disabled, the elderly, as well parents with eligible children are provided with health cover. The program ensures that medical bills of everybody in the United States who is within the above sited eligibility category are paid. Medicaid cover is broadly categorized into two. The community Medicaid, which helps individuals without or with little medical insurance and the Medicaid nursing home, which pays the every cost of nursing homes for the eligible people. Each state has its own Medicaid healthcare program; however, the Congress and the Center for medical and Medicaid Services set the rules for the Medicaid operations (Sultz & Young, 2010). Hence, different states have different eligibility rules but the same basic framework.
There are numerous benefits associated with the Medicaid program and they include:
i. The duration of Medicaid Benefits
This duration is determined by the each state independently; nevertheless, the federal requirement is that the duration, amount, as well as the scope of the Medicaid program be sufficient to allow it achieve its set goals ((Manski, Pepper and Citro 1998).
ii. Payment Benefits
The payment in this program is similar to those of a vendor program, that is, the payments are directly channeled to the healthcare organization providing Medicaid, and they are to accept Medicaid reimbursements as a full payment. Therefore, reimbursement rates must be sufficient to attract more Medicaid providers. This will make Medicaid services available to the qualifying population for the service (Sultz and Young 2010).
References
Manski C., F., Pepper J., & Citro F., C. (1998). Providing national statistics on health and social welfare programs in an era of change: summary of a workshop. New York, NY: Academies Press.
Medicaid Management Health Care Financing Administration, Region X. (n.d). Bureau Medicaid program: background information package, Alaska. US, the Bureau.
Sultz H., A., & Young K., M. (2010). Health Care USA. 7th ed. New York, NY: Jones & Bartlett Learning,
