Why is this? Was Medicaid intended, when instituted, to cover those in need during an unexpected worst case scenario, or to expand to nearly half of our population?
Towards the article, a quoted source spoke of “women being able to get coverage before becoming pregnant”. Um, when did we learn that it was O K to have children whose basics are paid for by others? Or, in the case of some, to not marry a partner & father of a child to get spousal coverage on his health insurance, making this woman dependent on the taxpayers?
Was Medicaid really intended to be as widely used as it now is?
So the emphasis should be on who this article is saying is covered by Medicaid, which is half of all births.
This is for two big reasons that I can tell.
First, we are as a society more interested in the health and well being of children. We are especially generous to try to protect children from the circumstances of their parents, whether they be at fault for them or not.
Second, fertility rates are higher in lower socioeconomic classes.
No, MC wasn’t intended to be used this way. Just like food stamps. But when corps see that the government will keep their work forces alive, healthy and fed, they lower their wages and cut benefits.
Anyone who is outraged at the high use of MC and food stamps should be FOR minimum wages being hiked. If McDonals and Walmart etc… paid their employees a real wage, we, the tax payers, wouldn’t be forced to feed and shelter and care for them.
“Second, fertility rates are higher in lower socioeconomic classes.”
Someone is lower income, they’re naturally more fertile?
Fertility is higher in the younger years for both men and women. Having seen my share of the medical billing, some of the Medicaid prenatal care is on mothers in their 30s and 40s.
Seems to me more women in this age group would have found a job with benefits, or realized the benefits of marriage.
I’ll bet the majority of conservatives upset by this oppose free or mandatory insurance covered birth control (not condoms) for women which would have the effect of reducing births to those with medicaid. The real cost of birth control pills isn’t so much the pills but the fact that you can’t get a prescription for more than a few months without another doctors visit. If you don’t have a free clinic near you then you go without. In world where humans didn’t act spontaneously in the heat of the moment condoms would be effective but we live in the real world where people do what feels good in the moment and often without condoms which leads to pregnancy. A passive method of birth control, like pills or implants, that is effective even in the heat of the moment is whats needed yet cons oppose these things.
