Posted on 01/05/2015 5:04:05 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Jan. 1 was a red-letter day for America's provision of healthcare to its poorest residents--and we do mean red.
That was the expiration day of a two-year bump in Medicaid reimbursements for primary care physicians seeing Medicaid patients. The raise temporarily raised Medicaid rates to the level of Medicare reimbursements; the expiration means a drop averaging nearly 43% nationwide, according to calculations by the Urban Institute.
The consequences are self-evident. As the Urban Institute observes: "Significant drops in primary care reimbursement may lead physicians to see fewer Medicaid patients, potentially leading these patients to have difficulty finding a physician or getting an appointment."
To keep the Medicaid reimbursement at 2014 levels would cost the federal government about $3.8 billion a year. Congress could fund the sum in its sofa cushions, if it so chose, and would make up the cost in improved health and more effective healthcare for Americans.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Solution: Spend more money.
Idiot Marxists: Los Angeles Times Editors
Overload the system with new Medicaid patients then cut down the reimbursements.
Build a larger constituency to push single-payer.
And this is EXACTLY the trap smart governors in Red states avoided by not accepting the “free” temporary medicaid money to expand the rolls.
This means the middle class will be paying more for doctor’s visits, lab fees, deductibles and premiums. Someone has to pay the bills. It’s why healthcare is so outrageously expensive now.
I got an education from a patient regarding California MediCal just the other day. He asked me why he should see a family doctor for a problem that would probably need x-rays, MRI or CT scan. If he goes to his family Dr. all those need prior authorization which will take 3-4 months. However, if he goes to the emergency room and knows exactly what to say he’ll get everything done in 1 day with no waiting for any prior authorizations or initiation of treatment
I agree with Hiltzik - we’re too cheap to pay doctors for office visits but we’ll happily pay them more to treat sick patients in the ER.
That’s the system so-called conservatives defend. After all, its only money, right? If patients go to the ER sick as a horse they can treated faster because the doctor makes more money. But we won’t pay doctors to keep those same patients from getting sick in the first place.
No wonder our health care costs are out of control.
I’ve never abused medical care a SECOND in my life! I suffered for two years with a debilitating hip to the point where the ball was FLAT! No insurance. NEVER once abusing “free” medical care. Almost died. Nothing is free. I pay my way. Too bad the parasites screw it up for everyone else! This is NOT a partisan problem! ER’s teeter on bankruptcy all the time.
Funny.
That's the classic argument for every trojan horse foisted on society by the anarchist-progressives to implement the Cloward-Piven national collapse.
Compassion for the benefit of unions, the indolent, the professional "poor" and the explosion of welfare by many other names.
There's a limit to everything.
It sounds so great, doesn't it. Spend more and more so there is no disease, no hunger, no deprivation of what would otherwise be called luxuries, but only for the idle, the unproductive, the quick to arson, mayhem and senseless destruction.
Nothing is too much, considering the alternative. A nationwide conflagration is unthinkable.
Until it isn't.
Common sense tells us an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Treating illnesses can get expensive quite fast; like the other poster noted, ERs are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
On the other hand, preventive care is what it means since you know how to keep a patient healthy.
The point you miss isn’t how much we should spend on health care; its where we should spend the money that does the most good.
Our health care system is set up in a way where people are treated after the fact and not before and it literally wastes money up the wazoo.
That’s not a classic argument for Cloward-Piven chaos; on the contrary, its an argument for considered choices and spending scarce money to the greatest benefit of society.
It should be a persuasive argument for utilizing doctors’ talents in a cost-effective and compassionate manner.
That's probably the second most common argument for spending ever increasing amounts on the idle, the indolent, the professional surfers who increasing milk the diminishing number of net taxpaying working, responsible working Americans.
In a rational universe, a viable economy can't tolerate 50% of its population defined as "helpless needy."
If the rest of us can see the obvious scamming of the activists, who themselves are non-productive parasites (in and out of government,) why can't you?
Taking that "compassionate" path is the road to certain national economic bankruptcy and social collapse.
Then everybody loses.
$20,000,000,000,000 deficit spending in the last 12 years isn't enough of a red flag?
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