The Lemington Home for the Aged in Pittsburgh was one of 600 predominately low-income, African American or Hispanic nursing homes that went bankrupt between 1999 and 2008 because low Medicaid reimbursement rates are not high enough to allow them to compete successfully against the big chains for the higher-paying Medicare and private pay residents. The primary reason Medicaid’s rates are low is that the law is based on a section the Social Security Act of 1935 that was inserted by Southern Congressmen to allow the states to determine eligibility standards and benefit amounts of welfare programs (and Medicaid is a welfare law, not a health insurance program) so that they could continue to discriminate against Blacks and protect their segregationist society.
