CENTRE TIMES DAILY / AP: Gov. Tom Corbett’s plan to extend taxpayer-paid health insurance to hundreds of thousands of the working poor came with his repeated warnings that it is not an expansion of Medicaid and that he would not expand an entitlement program that he views as already too costly, bloated and ineffective.
What went without mention by Corbett, however, is the driving force behind the cost of Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program: the elderly who need nursing home care or something like it on a long-term basis…
Nearly half of the state’s 2.2 million Medicaid enrollees are children. More than 900,000 elderly and disabled receive Medicaid services, whether for health care, to stay in a nursing home or get help in their homes with tasks they have difficulty doing… (more)
