The Medicaid Shunt
Take a look at the ACA from a 30,000 foot level. The administration was in cahoots with the insurers. It is certainly not affordable. Then look at the amount of NEW people getting Medicaid. It looks good for the government because they pay so much less to providers for Medicaid patients and they can claim so many more people are covered. Can anyone else see the next argument by the government? They will come out and say, “We tried working with the insurers (yeah, right) and they are still gouging people. The answer is to put more on people on Medicaid.” Think I am embellishing? I am not the only one with these thoughts. The Jeffery Singer, a general surgeon in Phoenix, did a piece in the WSJ called ObamaCare Shunts My Patients Into Medicaid and he basically thinks the same thing. Here are some highlights:
- Recently several of my patients who had been paying for their own individual health insurance informed me that they were forced off private insurance and placed into Medicaid when they signed up for health care at Healthcare.gov.
- A recent Boston University/Harvard Medical School study suggests that up to 80% of people participating in ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion have been shifted off their private insurance.
- Only 45% of doctors are now accepting new Medicaid patients, according to a recent survey by the health-care company Merritt Hawkins.
- Fewer doctors means long waits to see primary-care providers and even longer waits to see specialists. This invariably leads to worse health outcomes for those patients; that’s why numerous studies have shown Medicaid patients have significantly worse outcomes than those with private insurance.
- Thanks to ObamaCare, they have been shunted into a second-class health-care system.
- ObamaCare has shifted—and will continue to shift—people into substandard and often-delayed care, all in the name of increasing health-care “coverage.”
To summarize, the government wants more and more people on Medicaid. The result is that less and less doctors will take this payment. How to fix that? The next step is for the government to force doctors to take Medicaid patients by holding their licenses hostage. As the AMA and AAFP sit on their thumbs there are attempts by politicians to do just that. We are doomed unless we walk from government pay and hope to get grandfathered in from these new laws.
I saw a patient yesterday who said that they did not qualify for an Obamacare plan because their income was too low and they had to apply for Medicaid.
What Dr. Fitzpatrick said…plus here in TX we have a ton of patients who can’t even get Medicaid thanks to Rick Perry. Obviously he doesn’t think Jesus meant all that stuff about helping the sick and poor.
Stella, please direct me to the Scripture wherein Jesus tells his followers to do good for others by taking their neighbor’s work and wealth to do it, under the sanction of government force.
Please don’t tell me that we didn’t see this coming. There is no way that that doctors will NOT be enslaved unless we stand together. If we accept the lawyers forcing us to take At-A-Loss fees, we are truly lost. If we refuse, together, we can salvage our livelihoods.
BTW, this type of licensure requirement is done in many countries. Those citizens accept that the medical system is two tiered. Docs are required to tend government clinics from 9-12 and “allowed” to see private patients outside that time. Folks accept that ‘basic, universal care is free’ but that advanced care is fee for service.
Yes, there is an American Constitutional right to a lawyer. No, there is no ‘right’ to a physician. When we are beaten up with this lie, we must resist. The repeating of a lie does not make truth.
If Americans want to admit that O.J. Simpson bought a very different legal team than Joe Citizen gate from his public defender, then we can admit that America has a two tiered legal system.
Instead of the fantasy of “Everybody Gets Everything” medical care, perhaps we, as a nation need to put on our grown-up undies and have a sober conversation about what we can afford.
Dave, forget it. The tumor bulk is so large that the public not only will accept a two-tiered system, but ultimately will embrace it. After decades of (1) pushing health care as a “right”, and (2) encouraging class warfare, politicians have largely developed physicians as the problem in the public eye. Unlike many, I don’t believe that most patients trust their doctor. I think the public regards physicians with mistrust and envy, and will turn on them with increasing anger, abetted by politicians who just want to help. With large insurance cowed, complicit, and ultimately removed, control of the physicians will simply be assumed by the government.
Except that we are “modernizing” our healthcare by “broadening the experience of primary care providers.” I expect that within several years, the PA’s will be screaming because Prescribing EMT’s and licenses masseur/masseuses are intruding on their turf. Like the West African countries, the average person’s ‘doctor’ will be someone who can use the internet. Prescribing pharmacists will shake your hand at the Wal-Mart door and handle your prescription antibiotics for sore throat and ear infection. Midwives will ‘feminize’ childbirth – and the numbers of C-sections will go down as fewer people know how to do them.
It seems so callous to call it “Third World Healthcare.” Anyone have a better term?