Fix Health Care Policy

A main goal of Obamacare was to expand health care coverage in the United States, which it tries to achieve largely by adding 18 million more individuals to Medicaid. But health coverage does not always equate to access to care, which is already apparent in the Medicaid program. In light of an increasing physician shortage across the nation, the changes made by Obamacare will make it even harder for Medicaid beneficiaries to receive primary care.

Medicaid patients already face an uphill battle trying to find physicians, since the program pays providers significantly less than private insurers and even Medicare. In many cases, reimbursement does not even cover the cost of providing services. Meanwhile, the Association of American Medical Colleges predicts a shortage of 45,000 primary care physicians and 46,000 surgeons and medical specialists within the next 10 years. As the population ages, demand for health care providers will rise. (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: Medicaid patients, ObamaCare, physician access, private insurers, Side Effects

Like many federal efforts in Washington, last week’s reintroduction from House Democrats to create a public health insurance option, which would become part of the 2014 insurance exchanges created by Obamacare, is a bureaucratic redundancy. Stuart Butler points out that the health reform law already has its own “public option” through expanded powers to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

Calling the House bill a “smokescreen” for the nation’s opposition against a public option, Butler says the real story is in the “OPM alternative.” “Far from being an alternative, it is the fast road to a public plan — as I warned before the legislation passed. Why? Because the ‘alternative’ gives the OPM the power to establish national plans. These are to be private — but in name only.”

With “enormous reserve powers,” the federal government would be able to set premiums that would drive other private health insurers out of the market, leaving Americans with no choice but to enroll in the government-mandated health plan.

Tags: health insurance premiums, ObamaCare, Office of Personnel Management, private insurers, public option

“Why would [a public health insurance plan] drive private insurance out of business? If — if private — if private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care; if they tell us that they’re offering a good deal, then why is it that the government, which they say can’t run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That’s not logical.”

“I think there can be some legitimate concerns on the part of private insurers that if any public plan is simply being subsidized by taxpayers endlessly that over time they can’t compete with the government just printing money, so there are going to be some I think legitimate debates to be had about how this private plan takes shape.” — excerpts from press briefing (June 23, 2009)

Tags: out of business, private insurers