Medicaid and other state and county resources that may prove helpful to some....

[anjel75]

All states have the same plan, well kind of. I don't know that it is called Share the Cost, but I know that it is something that each state has. Medicaid is what the insurance is called one you have picked the plan up. You have to make a bare minimum of money to qualify as a married adult; however, your old bills could help! Medicaid CAN BE retroactive and will pick up on all of those old bills, but there is a certain time frame. All states are different in this respect. Share the Cost is what it is called to retro it back and picking you up based on your MEDICAL bills coming in. Your bills have to be MEDICAL. I guess I should have said that sooner. Like, if you made $100,000 a year, you wouldn't qualify automatically, but lets say you show up there with $500,000 of old medical bills, you would then be calculated by the "Share the Cost" measure and would then proceed to retro it back far enough to pay your medical bills or at least the biggest part. I won't say that everyone takes Medicaid because they don't. That doens't mean that they won't but you would have to file it yourself.

[htp115]

what state do you live in? i was a Doctors Office Manager and Medical biller for several years and i have personaly used Medicaid and "share of cost" while i was still married.

what you are saying about "share of cost' isnt completely accurate, at least not in Florida. You are correct about needing a bare minimum  or no income to qualify for "straight" Medicaid. when i was married with only 1 child we did NOT qaulify for the "straight" medicaid. our income was to high (and at the time our income was  $18,000 a year) that was when we were told about the "share of cost" program. "Share of cost" is a program for ppl who DO NOT qualify for the regular medicaid program. it's for the "average working family" who have no insurance. you HAVE to have some sort of income to qualify for it. like i said in my post below "anyone will qualify" no matter how high their income is. i assume thats why its called "share of cost". its meant to help families with NO insurance pay for high, costly and unexpected medical surgeries or hospital bills. your "share of cost" is based on your income. the more money you make, the higher your "share of cost" will be. unlike "regular medicaid" it doesnt cover "everyday dr's visits and prescriptions". your medical bills have to "meet or exceed" your share of cost amount on one, single day only. if/when that happens you will then qualilfy for "medicaid" from the that day until the end of that same month only. EVERYTHING is covered 100% for that period of time.

Say you have an $8,000 surgery (and your share of cost happens to be $7,900)  on May 14th. your surgery would be completely covered by Medicaid along with all other medical bills like dr's visits and prescriptions from May 14th thru May 31st. only.  On June 1st your Medicaid coverage would no longer be in effect. Your "share of cost" then starts back up again. in order to have Medicaid coverage in the month of June you would once again have to meet/exceed your "share of cost" amount. That is what makes this Program possible for families with ANY amount of income to get assistance with large medical bills.

I know Medcaid is a Federal program (like Medicare), but it is run by each  indivdual State. so programs do vary from state to state and alot of times are called by different names, but they still are all the same programs.

Like i said before i hope his information can be of help to Chrosty and others....

luv ya,
tink  :)
I just wanted to clear it up a little, i have been a member of this forum for several months and know that there are MANY ppl here WITHOUT insurance. it never really occured to me to post this info until chrosty's situation came up today.

[anjel75]

That is basically what I just said. I live in NC and we have just about the same programs. All states are different but not so much that they would differ a lot. It still comes down to US legislation. So, ALL states would have to adhere in some form or another. I know that Medicaid salary is so low, I hate to hear that ANYONE that is trying would be put into this group. Unfortunately, it happens. Now for the folks who just have no desire to be in the working population, contributing to what they have been abusing, I really don't care. That is with good thanks to my exhusband who was just too lazy to breathe!

So what I was saying about the term Share the Cost, it isn't called that here. That is just their way of retro-ing back your Medicaid so that it can then be paid off. It is also very helpful into helping you qualify for it. Here, if you made like $18,000, you most definitely wouldn't qualify, but if you have those outstanding medical bills that have been racked up for, I think here 6 months, and they add up to say, $20,000, they will then retro the Medicaid back and pay for those bills and then a certain percentage of that is subtracted from your income from that year, month or week and then they recalculate and come up with your "new" income. THEN, it will usually be low enough to put you into the Medicaid bracket.

People have these resources and just don't know it. I hate that, but since state monies have been cut, service definitions have changed and the US deficit has started growing, AKA The Bush Years, that is the way things are for now. There wasn't too many food stamp commercials back in the day but now they are obsolete and the reps that used to visit schools, workplaces and unemployment centers can't go any more because they aren't being paid for it and it is unfair to ask us to do it when we aren't getting paid that doesn't mean we don't still feel real strongly about it and WILL sometimes go out of our way to get some kind of word out there. If you need the help, that is why I work and pay taxes and I think I speak for most people when I say that. I don't work to pay for scum though and I have known a few of those, thanks to my ex....lol.