For all their attempts through ObamaCare proposals to add millions of people to states’ Medicaid rolls, Democrats in Congress might as easily squeeze a cantaloupe into a teacup. It just won’t work.
The fact is, the states are under such awful budget pressure that they are having to consider painful cuts to Medicaid.
And even before those cuts, Medicaid was stretched thin.
We spotted a particularly alarming point about Medicaid in a recent article in The New York Times.
“The Medicaid program already pays doctors and hospitals at levels well below those of Medicare and private insurance, and often below actual costs,” the newspaper reported. “Large numbers of doctors, therefore, do not accept Medicaid patients, and payment cuts may further discourage participation in the program … .”
If the nation’s physicians are already hesitant to accept Medicaid patients because the reimbursements do not cover the costs of the care provided, how likely will they be to accept millions more patients at even lower rates?
And if throngs of new Medicaid patients cannot find physicians to treat them, won’t they just wind up going to an emergency room for routine care? Isn’t one of the goals of ObamaCare supposed to be helping people avoid going to an emergency room when their condition is not urgent?
As much as the administration might wish it, there is just no getting around costs. Putting millions more people on government care does not make the costs go away — or even guarantee that patients will really get better care.
What it does guarantee is more out-of-control federal spending and unsustainable national debt.