Is the State of Colorado Stopping the Disabled and Medically Needy from Getting Health Care?

Information about the current health care crisis, the laws for the disabled, and information about entitlements for the disabled and various laws that protect them. Colorado a state that isn't protecting the disabled.

(PRWEB) January 1, 2005 -- One of the most fundamental needs for any physically or mentally disabled person is their need for medical care and medial assistance at an affordable price and under the Social Security and Medicaid Acts the federal government allows coverage of these individuals. But for many disabled they must chose to work and lose health care or not work and live a poverty ridden life with government supplement income of around $600 a month and no chance or hope to prosper.

The Federal law is actually fairly progressive. The feds have passed an allowance for states under title XIX of the Social Security Act Statute 1902 that allows disabled people to work and prosper with very little income or resource limitations. Income is generally set at 250-300 percent of Federal Poverty Level, but the problem with this federal law is it is not mandated, so states like Colorado dont have anything written into state regulations for the Department of Health and Human Services on a county by county level. States like Colorado in fact choose not to utilize these federal codes to expand their health care system to reach more of the truly needy people in their community. The Federal Govt imposes no penalty and doesnt make it a mandated law, so states like Colorado get away with letting the disabled fall through the cracks.

The only way a disabled person can go back to work in Colorado and states like Colorado and keep their medical benefits, which are essential to living for most disabled Americans. The provision is 1619B of Title XIX of the Social Security Act. The 1619B allows a disabled person to make up to 250 percent of the Federal Poverty Level and still get their Medicaid benefits through the Social Security Administration (SSA). You cant save more than $2,000 or you will lose your benefits (this is a resource limitation), but you can still have a job, so long as you dont save too much money. Wow, what an America for a disabled person. You can work but dont prosper. So if you make anymore than $25,000 per year you lose your benefits, which is your health care and your lifeblood of existence to most disabled. You say go out and just purchase health care. Not so easy when you have a pre-existing condition. Now America being a capitalist country and no regulations in the health care industry in this area, these providers dont need to cover you and they wont. It is called uninsurable.

Here is a great case example. A heart transplant wants to go back to work, but no health care company in their right mind would cover this guy. There are beginning to be quite a few transplants and cancer survivors, AIDS patients, and most of these people struggle to get health care. This is a pre-existing condition so no health insurance company will cover them because it doesnt profit them to do so, remember they can discriminate covering because the law allows them to do this and it is not profitable to cover someone who is going to actually use the coverage. A transplant patient needs daily Rxs that can run into the $1,000s per month and procedures that cost $25,000 like a simple heart catherization or an ultrasound for your heart called an echo-cardiogram, which costs $6,000 for one hour study, according to CU Health Medical and Science Center Records.

Is the state of Colorado doing anything about this? No, they have no intention of allowing more medically needy and disabled people health care coverage at this time, because the state and county funds have been depleted, due to the war in Iraq, the poor economy and other agenda that the politicians feel is more important than any health and human services issue. In fact, Colorado has very little money to put into any new programs and is in fact cutting programs and giving HHS workers fur lows (days off without pay), according to El Paso County Health and Human Service.

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