Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Paying for Government-Run Health Care

Wanted to pass along this Wall Street Journal piece about ongoing problems in many Medicaid programs, particularly low physician reimbursement and their effects on beneficiary access to care, particularly for specialist physicians.  The Administration’s new head of the Medicaid program acknowledged this problem, and its effects on low-income beneficiaries — and offered as its “solution” a new commission of bureaucrats to examine Medicaid payment rates (which CBO has already stated are 30-40% below private insurance coverage).

The article comes as Democrats propose to expand Medicaid to another 7-10 million low-income beneficiaries, many of whom might have access to existing private coverage.  However, an expansion on this scale could result in 1) a further squeeze on already-strapped state budgets, 2) more doctors dropping out of the Medicaid program, or refusing to accept new patients, due to low reimbursements, and 3) more beneficiaries with a Medicaid insurance card, but no guarantee of care.