If you read my earlier post, you know about my frustration with Katie Beckett Medicaid. After digging through the Katie Beckett paperwork, there are a few things that infuriate me about it.
-The packet included a voter registration form. Tell me, what business is it of DFACS if the applicant, in this case, my 5 year old son, registers to vote? I see several problems with this. One, is that this is a blatant attempt to register a certain demographic to vote. I would make an educated guess that a high population of applicants for Medicaid vote Democrat. Two, this seems like a perfect situation for voter fraud. Are these registration forms checked properly? What does DFACS do with them once they receive them? Three, who is paying for the three pages that this voter registration application costs? It probably costs $.10 for those pages. Add all the Medicaid applicants each year, and that equals hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Waste. Four, KB Medicaid is only for children under the age of 18. There is no reason to send this to a person who is not eligible to register to vote. DFACS should not be in the business of soliciting and processing voter registration.
-The packet contained a questionnaire about our whole family's income and assets. Now, specifically for KB Medicaid, family income/assets has no bearing on the eligibility. See, KB was created for people with special needs whose family income excludes them from regular Medicaid. The questionnaire wanted our bank account numbers, make/model/value of our vehicles, value of our home and land, value of my husband's farm equipment, value of my husband's farm crops, value of boats or recreational vehicles, types of life insurance and their values, our family income, etc. First of all, I am not applying for my family to be covered by Medicaid. Just my son to be covered under KB. So therefore, it is none of the state's business the value of ANYTHING! Period. A simple statement of our family's annual income to determine ineligibility for regular Medicaid should be sufficient. Who in their right mind would rather go through all the hassle of KB Medicaid if that person is eligible for regular Medicaid? Doesn't make sense.
-The packet had a several page form about health insurance. Again, KB Medicaid eligibility is not determined by health insurance. But, in our case, Cohen doesn't have it. They will not cover him. That's why I apply for this ridiculous KB Medicaid. But the packet wants all of our family health insurance information regardless of Cohen's coverage. They also want copies of our insurance cards. Now, they will take my word that Cohen is registering to vote and meets eligibility requirements, but won't take my word that he in ineligible for health insurance coverage under our policy? Again, all of that doesn't matter. That is not considered when determining his eligibility. So, why do they need to know it?
I think that this is a profiling and data collecting attempt by the state and federal government. See, I talked to my state senator last night, and most of this is federally mandated. I'll keep you posted with what I find out. I am sending the forms to my state senator for him to review. Hopefully we will be able to streamline this application/renewal process. I read the State of Georgia Katie Beckett Policy Statement. I also read some other states policy statements. Georgia's is the most complicated. Of corse. Leave it to Georgia to make something that should be simple the most ridiculous and complicated.
No comments:
Post a Comment