Medicaid not as easy to change

The following excerpt is from an article in the Detroit Free Press.  You may read the full article there.

Medicaid plans have been under pressure to penalize recipients with unhealthy habits.

But there are fewer ways to do that because poor people pay no or very small co-pays and no monthly premium, Medicaid officials and others said.

The program also doesn't want to discourage people from seeing doctors, they said.

The program is "limited in what you can offer with incentives and disincentives," said Steve Fitton, director of Michigan's Medicaid program.