Well, the wait is over on Healthcare Reform. The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the law, calling it constitutional, albeit with some twists. As part of the ruling, states don’t have to expand their various Medicaid programs to 133% of the federal poverty level or lose Medicaid funding, as the law originally planned. The decision removes the penalty, allowing a state to refuse (or “opt out”) of participating in Medicaid expansion.
Thus, it’s possible that there will not be the full 20 million or so individuals added to the states’ Medicaid rolls. The expansion of Medicaid in the law is 100% covered for states by the Federal government through 2016; thereafter, Federal coverage drops to 90%.
Since the inception of the modern healthcare industry after WWII, the U.S. has been plagued with a daunting amount of wasteful spending related to healthcare. For the first time, the technology has come of age that truly allows us to change that reality and to take back those wasted healthcare dollars and redeploy them towards real benefits.