Thursday, February 24, 2011

$100M to advertise Medicaid?

From the Huffington Post:

New York spends more than $100 million marketing Medicaid to the state's low-income and poor residents.

A new Health Department study shows that most of that money is illegally misused by HMOs who utilize the funds to steal patients from competitors, rather than attracting the uninsured.

"Marketing costs are largely spent by health plans to attract members of other plans," the study finds. "They do not focus on enrolling the uninsured."

The New York Post reports that health officials are using the data to suggest that the $113.6 million subsidy should be cut from the budget.

About 84 percent of the state's Medicaid-eligible residents are already enrolled in the program.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

yes, but this is a tweeder program and one of the reasons we reelect those morons with 80% of the vote.

whole busloads show up at the polls twittering away with as much attention to what they are doing as you or I would casually look out a window.

Anonymous said...

Why do we have to market an entitlement?

Anonymous said...

Sounds perfectly Capitalist to me. If you can't kill a government program, cash-in on it.

Those campaign contributions from Ad agencies and pub firms at work.