Sunday, December 28, 2014

Obamacare Medicaid Scheme Diminishes Health Care Access




Once again, critics of Obamacare have proven to be prescient.  Anyone with half a functioning brain could have predicted Democratic promises were based on lies.  Here in North Carolina, liberals spent the past four years protesting at our state's capitol, demanding legislators expand Medicaid coverage.  They insisted the federal government was going to pay 90% of the cost, infinitum.  Skeptics realized the implications of expanding this program and warned that health care access would diminish.  Well guess what?  It’s happening.  The New York Times reported the following:

WASHINGTON — Just as millions of people are gaining insurance through Medicaid, the program is poised to make deep cuts in payments to many doctors, prompting some physicians and consumer advocates to warn that the reductions could make it more difficult for Medicaid patients to obtain care.

The Affordable Care Act provided a big increase in Medicaid payments for primary care in 2013 and 2014. But the increase expires on Thursday — just weeks after the Obama administration told the Supreme Court that doctors and other providers had no legal right to challenge the adequacy of payments they received from Medicaid.

The impact will vary by state, but a study by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan research organization, estimates that doctors who have been receiving the enhanced payments will see their fees for primary care cut by 43 percent, on average.

Stephen Zuckerman, a health economist at the Urban Institute and co-author of the report, said Medicaid payments for primary care services could drop by 50 percent or more in California, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania, among other states.


And guess who’s going to make up that cost.  You can expect an avalanche of lawsuits by special interest groups demanding states pay for the difference.  Don’t doubt it, it’s already happening.   

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