re: 7 in 10 Louisiana children are on Medicaid

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Over 60% of babies born in Louisiana are to mothers on Medicaid. And over half are born to unwed mothers.

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Almost every pregnant woman in Louisiana is eligible for Medicaid. Post Obamacare the hospital where I worked had a group in admissions whose only purpose was to find some sort of insurance program for uninsured patients. They'd sign them up so we could get paid. Of course we had no idea if they ever paid a premium. It was hugely successful for the bottom line.

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the hospital is accepting that Medicaid will only pay $35 bc the procedure only costs $10 to begin with

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Medicaid frequently pays less than the cost incurred, and it is a big reason you see it taken in limited cases. There are exceptions where it may pay well, and there are times they pay zero (ex: they won’t pay for discharge services from the hospital. You can bill them for a regular progress note on the day of discharge and get paid, but if you bill them like you bill every one else, you get zero). There are over 10,000 CPT codes, each of which is a distinct billable service which Medicaid, and each other third party payer, have matched to an amount they will pay and each biller has set to a bill. The lower number on either side is what gets paid.
Hospitals often strike deals with the state and federal governments to take x% Medicaid in exchange for funding or for certain amounts of indigent care for some amount of money.



And rough reimbursement for a normal, quick office visit from MCD is usually under half of what it is for most private insurers (~$35 vs $80-90). It is not uncommon for doctors near me to agree to see Medicaid patients on a very limited case by case basis (know the family well and take care of them, usually) and not even bother billing MCD. Again, they’re people and they need care, so it’s pretty easy to find space to give back a little to the community, but my office wouldn’t exist in its current form if they were the entire clientele, and they certainty are not paying based on cost of services rendered.


One last goofy example:
Up until age 18, they’ll pay for me to give a shot of antibiotics in the office. After age 18, they will not pay for the injection, and they won’t pay for the medicine. So if I have a patient with syphilis, I have to prescribe the penicillin G to a local pharmacy, the patient has to go pick it up, then I have to have them come back to get an injection, and I don’t get paid for my needles, syringe, or the time it takes to give it or watch them after to make sure there’s no reaction.

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Maybe promoting sexual freedom and promiscuity was a bad idea.

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Or refusing to teach safe sex instead of abstinence.

Sex ed was an absolute joke.

Trashy

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What an absolute failure of the adults in our state,

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Get the picture of how hard our teachers have it?

my sister left her husband and she's a "single mother" but is engaged to this guy and they purposefully have left the kids on Medicaid instead of adding the kids to her or the dads insurance. she's a school teacher and he's an electrician. Keep in mind her fiance pays for everything for her. i'm ashamed to say the least.

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The solution is to get a job with medical benefits. Many of us waited to get married and have families until we had health coverage through work.

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Easily pay 20k? I think our family out of pocket max is 8k a year or so.

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now add the monthly premiums to that.

We reward poor people for reproducing offspring they can’t afford to raise