Recently, the Feds have been making changes in the Medicare/Medicaid programs, mostly in an effort to push the financial burden off onto the individual states.
Medicaid which covers prescriptions for the extremely low income disabled and elderly has now morphed into something called Medicare part D ("D" is for drugs which is what I think whoever came up with this was on).
Before, you just went down and showed your Medicaid Card to the pharmacy, made your co-pay, got your prescriptions and walked 10 miles home (if you're lucky you had a motorized wheelchair, but I digress).
Now, you have to join a private HMO if you get Medicaid. Woe befall the medicaid recipient who dares to move somewhere - even within their own state. When I moved 400 miles away, I vanished off every computer screen known to man except here (sorry, LJ).
Colorado now has a state office of Medicaid (Medicare part dumb) in Denver. Every Colorado county also has its very own team of medicaid technicians. There is no state-wide policy in Colorado except there is - no there isn't.
If you move, you have to notify Denver which promptly cancels your coverage. You then go into your new county office where the medicaid technicians (all 10 of them for teensy Montezuma county) are busy in the back room comparing manucures or something. The technician you've been assigned to is always away due to a "personal crisis." When she gets back from the manicure shop two weeks later, she sends you a Medicare part D eligibility form. You take this form to a local private insurance company (I went to State Farm), and they sign you up for your new HMO and the insurance agent gets a commission from either the state or Federal government or both for its pains.
The happy Medicaid recipient is now in limbo because the new HMO won't kick in for a month and your old one has been cancelled. So you take ALL your paperwork (which comes to a file about an inch thick at this point) and dump it on some hapless pharmacy technician who spends a full hour setting you up for interim coverage that lasts a month. When you finally get your new HMO card, you have to get set up by the pharmacy all over again. The pharmacy gets a kick back from the government for dealing with Medicare part D clients.
Now how is this saving the tax payer money? Please, please tell me. What would happen if medicaid or medicare part D was reviewed once a year, you kept your same card if you were still eligible and didn't if you weren't?
Am I missing something here?
