This story is so wrong, the sourcing so screwed up, and the fact-checking (if any was even done) so totally blown that I can’t possibly get into it all unless I happen to have a copy of the email I sent boingboing about it and ohhhhhwait what’s this… nope it’s not a middle finger pulled out from behind my back, it’s the email!
Long story short if you don’t want to read all this crap it’s completely false that Trump is coming for disabled people’s Medicaid based on anything that has been reported right now. Same with nursing homes, chronically ill, HIV, any of the other stuff mentioned. There is no reporting available to support the statements about disabled, chronically ill, etc. being capped that are made in either the main post here or the Yves Smith post that’s linked to. Yeah that might change in the future, anything can change in the future, but we don’t tell vulnerable people they’re going to get lifetime-capped based on hypotheticals, this is a bar for journalistic ethics stuff that Breitbart or f’ing like Gateway Pundit usually manage to clear. This story is an ouroboros of sourcing - makes claim; cites to McClatchy, which contradicts that claim twice over; then cites to Yves Smith citing the same McClatchy piece in order to make claims that McClatchy again does not support. I’ve tweeted Cory, I’ve emailed, idk wtf to do but this article is scaring the crap outta disabled people (it gave me a panic attack and I had to read every damn article about this that’s on the net before I could totally calm down so I figured I might as well try to get it fixed while I was at it). It’s especially important to get the thing down before any [more?] vulnerably mentally ill people read that they’re going to lose their insurance. Help me out, comment section. What do I do? Read my arguments and look at my sources, you’ll find I tell you no lies. Is there a community mod or something that can get in touch with somebody to at least get this pulled down pending review? At this point I’m reduced to bugging other journalists on twitter to see if they can get word over, because Cory is happily tweeting away while ignoring my tweets and emails.
Hi, this article is dangerously inaccurate and sloppy. Please fix it ASAP. This isn’t just a regular correction request, the safety of vulnerable people is potentially at risk.
[link that goes to this very article removed here cuz I can only have 2 links I guess]
There is zero reporting out there that supports the claim that the Trump admin is planning on capping Medicaid for disabled people, and the McClatchy story linked at the bottom of the page contradicts this claim twice:
[link to McClatchy article removed for same reason, it’s in the main post up top just click on it]
-Once by saying the Admin’s plan is to retain current Medicaid for kids, pregnant women, the disabled, and other “vulnerable populations”:
“But the proposals appear to reflect the administration’s position that Medicaid coverage should be retained for vulnerable populations like children, pregnant women and those with disabilities.”
(They may “appear” differently upon subsequent reporting, but we do not tell people they’re going to lose their Medicaid based on hypotheticals.)
-And it contradicts the claim again by pointing out that critics are citing its need to track people’s disability status - ie. so they can know who to exempt from the caps - as a wasteful downside.
“Critics say Medicaid time limits will pose an enormous administrative burden by requiring states to track recipients’ employment, eligibility and disability status.”
The piece also cites to Yves Smith @ Nakedcapitalism, who in turn links back to the exact same McClatchy piece linked above in order to make her case.
Smith:
“In addition to hitting those with chronic ailments (like those with HIV who are covered in New York), the other group hit hard would be those in nursing homes.”
This is a wildly-irresponsible assumptive leap. The McClatchy piece does not mention HIV patients or the otherwise chronically ill, nor nursing home residents, in any way, shape, or form whatsoever. Smith is assuming that “vulnerable populations” excludes these groups. She has no basis for doing so, or for otherwise assuming what “vulnerable populations” means, good or bad. If she wanted to make this case she should have contacted McClatchy for clarification. More to the point, she is a financial blogger and you never should have cited her for a Medicaid story in the first place.
The legislation is abominable, no question. It’s unthinkable that any caring human being would countenance doing this to anyone who is in need of the medical provider of last resort, “able” bodied or not. But there is literally zero evidence out there in any story on this subject (and trust me I’ve read that allows you to factually state that the capping in question is going to happen to the disabled or the chronically-ill. None. This is particularly important when we remember that a segment of the disabled population are mentally ill and that mentally ill people whose conditions are severe enough to be considered disabled tend not to respond well to stress.
In other words, your careless sourcing and lack of fact-checking gave me a panic attack this morning and I spent a couple hours tracking down the stories I’d already read, looking for new ones, and nailing down the absolute undeniable fact that there is zero reporting available to support the claims that these lifetime caps would be applied to the disabled, chronically ill, nursing home patients, etc. Again, the disability portion is flatly-contradicted by your own link to the McClatchy story. And the rest, though they may yet turn out to be true, are currently based on an assumptive leap by a finance blogger. Here is a link to ThinkProgress’s treatment of the story - do you think they wouldn’t be shouting from the rooftops if they had the facts to support that Trump was going to try to throw disabled people off Medicaid?!
Trump administration to allow lifetime limits on Medicaid, coverage for thousands at risk – ThinkProgress
Here is an additional list of stories you could have checked (or, of course, just read your own citation to McClatchy) instead of messing this up this badly.
GOP States Want to Impose Time Limits on Medicaid - No mention of disabled/disability, chronically ill, HIV, or nursing homes. Ed Kilgore is a Democratic activist, so again, he would be screaming this from the rooftops if it was happening and he had facts to back it up.
Kaiser: [I’m out of links. Google “What Might Be Next After Medicaid Work Mandates? Lifetime Limits On Adults Access To Coverage” and look at the article on khn dot org] - Mentions disability once as part of a description of what Medicaid does. No mention of anything else.
MoJo: [If These Five States Get Their Way, Millions Could Be at Risk of Losing Health Insurance - motherjones dot com] - Explicitly states that Arizona’s desired version of the waiver would exempt disabled people from the caps. No mention of the other topics.
Themighty, whatever that is: [Trump Administration May Put Lifetime Limits on Medicaid Coverage - Elizabeth Cassidy, themighty dot com] - embeds one tweet from a doctor who makes the same assumptive leap as Smith did. One mention of disability from a Democratic-aligned activist. Zero confirmation of anything you relayed in your article. “Themighty?” Never heard of it but it’s obvious at a glance that this is a low-quality source of info on topics this serious.
Healthcare journalists exist. Talk to one of them if your own McClatchy citation isn’t good enough. Talk to Sarah Kliff. For god’s sake at least talk to Ezra Klein. Or just spike your Medicaid post and go back to reporting on toy robots. This is irresponsible, piss-poor journalism that shows no evidence of quality control. It’s inhumane and unethical to run something like this considering the potential impact it can have on the affected audience. The disabled aren’t just a bunch of people in wheelchairs with healthy brains. Some of us are prone to doing very bad things to ourselves when we’re stressed, like with the false implication that we’re going to lose our Medicaid for example.
Mentally ill people who are subjected to this clickbait shock-garbage about the dire things Trump is supposedly going to do to them are prone to have anxiety or panic attacks (thank you for the panic attack by the way, really appreciate that), fall into depressive spells, experience bipolar swings, relapse on drug/alcohol problems, and experience a worsening of a wide variety of other symptoms – and if they’re already way down when they see it this might be enough to push them to self-harm or, god forbid, suicide. Why not, right? They’re going to lose their only source of healthcare in this fictional world you’ve created through nonexistant fact-checking and circular sourcing.
It’s totally unacceptable to be subjecting vulnerable populations like this to shock-headlines that have no substance behind them and I can only hope that you haven’t done any serious damage to any of us yet. At the very least, I highly doubt I’m the first person you’ve given an anxiety or panic attack to in the time the article has been up. Please unshit your bed and straighten up your fact-checking, or if you’re going to be “just a blog” that doesn’t engage in that stuff, then leave matters this serious to the pros at the above-linked organizations. This is a pretty sorry display guys. Please get it straightened out before you hurt someone. If you’re going to deal with topics this series, this impactful, and this prone to causing severe stress to the people who are the recipients of the programs in question, then either step your game WAY up or, again, spike it and stick to reporting about whether the hell I can plug into my raspberry pi this week. This is a big f’ing deal.
And if you’re going to make me do your job for you, I want your paycheck. It’s only fair.
