Have We Been Grubered? How Does Medicaid Expansion Affect All of Us?
December 29, 2014 Leave a comment
I’m not in the medical profession. I’m a CEO of a software company with 40 FTEs concerned about big government and taxes.
A recent article in the NYTs As Medicaid Rolls Swell, Cuts in Payments to Doctors Threaten Access to Care
I’m also concerned about everyone’s welfare, including the uninsured. So pardon my naïveté.
Here’s my take. Hospitals were caring for the uninsured for free. Now they get something, but less each year, but it’s still more than nothing. The argument being with the ACA now they have to contend with more patients who can’t afford healthcare and the end result being it ends up costing hospitals more than nothing because of the increase in the number of people seeking care. Which is a good thing for the uninsured, right?
Unless the ACA a.k.a., Obamacare, a.k.a. Big Government, pulls a sleight of hand, reducing the Medicaid reimbursable to the extent large hospitals will only survive in a single payer system and smaller hospitals and practitioners are the losers forced to join larger institutions if they want to survive. What’s obvious is many talented practitioners get screwed.
On the other hand, I guess what I am suggesting is, it’s not apparent to me or most people, whether the ACA is helping people or hurting people. Certainly I oppose a big government takeover of our healthcare system.
What’s not apparent to me is how we take care of the uninsured/or recently indoctrinated Medicaid patients and still provide the best healthcare system in the world.