Medicaid is paying millions for salty, fat-laden ‘medically tailored’ cheeseburgers and sandwiches
Medicaid is paying millions for salty, fat-laden ‘medically tailored’ cheeseburgers and sandwiches
The billing of Medicaid for dishes loaded with sodium and saturated fat raises questions about government oversight of meal delivery programs for people with serious illnesses.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17483630
They’re marketed as healthy, “dietitian-approved” meals and delivered directly to the homes of people seriously ill from cancer, diabetes, or heart disease: a Jimmy Dean frozen sausage breakfast sandwich, biscuits and gravy, a cheeseburger.
These are among the offerings sold by an Idaho-based company, Homestyle Direct, which is paid millions of dollars each year by taxpayer-funded state Medicaid programs to deliver what the company calls medically tailored meals. The company, which advertises delivering 7.8 million meals annually, has menus catering to customers trying to manage their cancer and diabetes, as well as “heart healthy” and “renal friendly” dishes.
However, multiple nutrition experts told STAT that many of Homestyle Direct’s offerings fall far short of what they’d consider medically tailored meals, a class of foods that have been proven to help those suffering from diet-related conditions improve their health and stay out of the hospital. Most also don’t appear to meet new voluntary accreditation standards crafted by medically-tailored meal providers.
“Homestyle Direct to me doesn’t look like medically tailored meals at all — it doesn’t even look like generally healthy meals,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University.
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Let's shame Medicaid folks. I'm all for criticizing some things and behaviors but this really feels like a conservative dogwhistle attack. If someone who's receiving taxpayer funded food at home wants a cheeseburger now and then, I'm happy that my taxes are giving them some comfort.
I thought the article would be about that, but it's about the quality of the food. It's supposed to be healthy food for sick people, but it doesn't meet the standards. That's a problem for patients with conditions that require controlled diets like diabetes
How is that Medicaid's fault? Why isn't the title something like "Medicaid providers buying unhealthy food with federal funds"
Because we don't name the criminals in this country. It is always stupid government... Or some shit.
It would be nice to know what corpo scam is doing this. Prolly same guy selling prison and "school" food
The company is even listed in the summary, you don't even need to read the article.
Well if you did the work, fucking name them here
Yeah I read the article too. I want to see the available options for each category. Hospitals offer food options in different categories that have a range of healthiness that seems questionable too. Then again, folks in hospitals under tremendous stress should be able to treat themselves time and again. I hope they improve their menu, don't get me wrong.
Hospitals are ran as a scam tho... Not sure what point you are making here unless you are trying to support position that hospitals and vendors are stealing taxpayer money via over priced and subpar products...
If food is shit and price is high... Who gets the difference in value?
Asking for a friend
Because it’s prescribed, it’s approved by Medicaid. If they approved eating grass as a treatment for thyroid cancer, I’d also be pissed. People trust their healthcare system to help them, because not everyone can be an expert. So it’s reasonable to expect Medicaid to only approve things for payment if they promote health. The cheeseburgers in question do not.
STAT News is generally well respected for medical/research news. I think the point of the article is to criticise the company for not making better foods/medicaid for not choosing a better company.
Unfortunately, I will not be at all surprised if right-wing outlets take that headline and run with it as a general criticism of Medicaid.
It's an irresponsible way to word a headline if they want to avoid that.
This entire comment thread is based off someone who clearly thought this was just some sort of food subsidy program and not nutrition based... so I totally agree it will be taken wrong.
Spot on.
in that sense, agreed
So because of bad PR we should not criticize corruption?
I didn't even imply such a thing, so I have no idea where you got that from.
Are you under the bizarre impression that there is no article, just a headline?
I will not be at all surprised if right-wing outlets take that headline and run with it as a general criticism of Medicaid.
Your bigger concern here is what ring wing will do rather than the crime being committed.
If you don't mean that way, I apologies.
This is not about what is a bigger concern. I can't speak for you, but most people can be concerned about more than one thing. In my case, one of those things was that I feel, and others apparently agree, that it is a headline which will be used as anti-Medicaid propaganda.
Why that doesn't concern you, I don't know. It should considering how effective propaganda has been throughout pretty much all of human history.
Media bias is always anti governments and pro "free enterprise"
Good point tbh
Right, but the title doesn't even mention a company. Why.
Because in this here country we don't name the perp when they are part of the club.
This is a huge lesson in this question.