Medicaid is a public health insurance program jointly funded by the state and federal government. The major requirement for Medicaid eligibility is income. Families and individuals who meet those income requirements can receive health care services at little or no cost. The program also extends to some elderly people and to some who are physically or developmentally disabled, depending on income. There are some children who do not qualify for Medicaid because of income who might qualify for the State children’s health insurance program.

There are opponents of this type of tax-funded health care program who argue about the high cost of offering health insurance on this level. The problem is that without it, there would be thousands of the nation’s poor who simply have no options with regard to medical care.

Consider the single parent who is raising two small children. One arrives home from school with a fever and cough. The mother can’t afford to miss work, let alone pay the cost of a doctor’s visit and then pick up the necessary medicines to take care of the bug plaguing her child. So instead of a doctor’s visit the next day, the child goes off to school, spreading the germs to classmates and teachers. At the end of the following day, the fever is raging and the mother then makes a trip to the emergency room - where they must provide services for the sick child and where they won’t typically require the mother to pay up front. By now, the ill child has spread the bug around and the well child will be sick within a few days, starting the cycle over again. It’s not that she doesn’t care - it comes down to the lack of funds to do the right thing.

With Medicaid, the mother is still faced with missing work to make the trip to the doctor, but at least she can seek out the medical treatment and provide the necessary medicines for her child. She may even get the child into a clinic at the first signs of illness, halting the progress and spread of the germ. The cost difference - at least from the mom’s point of view - is astronomical.