Emily's Cat
Rarely prone to hissy-fits
Based on my very limited knowledge of CA, MediCal is essentially Medicaid.
It's possible to be dual eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare. Medicaid serves low-income populations, and Medicare serves both elderly and disabled populations. A person who is both disabled and low-income can qualify for both.
LA Care is not familiar to me, but I would suspect that it's just the county name for Medicaid. In some areas, Medicaid is handled at a more local level, and each of those localities keeps independent budgets. I don't know whether that's a good thing, I just know it happens.
As for Humana - I would guess that CA (or at least LA) uses a "Managed Medicaid" schema. State Medicaid essentially outsources coverage to private carriers, who provide network access, disease and case management, and utilization management on behalf of the state. Generally, the state doesn't pay the insurer any more than they would pay if they were handling it themselves. The upshot of this approach is that customers *usually* get a better overall experience, since the insurance company is handling their claims, customer service, etc. Often the medicaid beneficiary sees the same doctors as any other insured individual would, rather than doctors who have contracted directly to get really low reimbursement rates.
. There was a flurry of posts in February making me hopeful he'll post more in the future.
Good enough for me. I was reading a blog post from Abraham Lincoln who pointed out that it's impossible to lie or distort on the Internet.