Subaqua Sternal Rubs

Slightly old news, (ok, a day) but I couldn't add my two cents, since my site was down:

Hundreds of thousands of poor people across the nation will lose their state-subsidized health insurance in the coming months as legislators scramble to hold down the enormous — and ever-escalating — cost of Medicaid.

Here in impoverished southeast Missouri, nurses at a family health clinic stash drug samples for patients they know won't be able to afford their prescriptions after their coverage is eliminated this summer. Doctors try to comfort waitresses, sales clerks and others who will soon lose coverage for medical, dental and mental healthcare.

"I don't know what cure to offer them," Dr. Hameed Khaja said.

Lawmakers say they feel for those who will lose coverage. But they say also that they have no alternative.

Prenatal checkups, care in nursing homes and other health services for the poor and disabled account for more than 25% of total spending in many states. Medicaid is often a state's single biggest budget item, more expensive even than K-12 education. And the price of services, especially prescription drugs and skilled nursing for the elderly, continues to soar.

The federal government helps pay for Medicaid, but in the coming fiscal year, the federal contribution will drop by more than $1 billion because of changes in the cost-share formula. President Bush has warned of far deeper cuts to come; he aims to reduce federal spending on Medicaid by as much as $40 billion over the next decade.

In Missouri, where nearly one in five residents is enrolled in Medicaid, Gov. Matt Blunt is poised to sign the most drastic overhaul of all: a bill that would elim

inate the program entirely in three years.

Blunt expects that by then, the state will have established an alternative mechanism for helping the poorest of the poor. But the legislation on his desk does not insist on it. It only states that Missouri Medicaid will cease on June 30, 2008.

In the meantime, the bill severely cuts the existing program, ending coverage for an estimated 65,000 to 100,000 people.

Legislators are still working out eligibility details. But under one leading proposal a single mother of two who earns $3,800 a year would be considered too wealthy to qualify for Missouri Medicaid.

Source: LATimes via Yahoo News

More great thinking by our politicians. So instead of having heath insurance to visit a primary care provider in a low-cost clinic, this will drive hundreds of thousands of patients to their nearest Emergency Department, since they are required by law to treat all patients that walk in the door, regardless of payment status or whether it truly is a life-threatening emergency. So instead of having the state bear the cost, it is shifted onto the individual hospital/Emergency Department, which is one of the costliest sites to provide care. Health care expenditures will continue to rise as more patients who will not pay their bills seek care in an ever increasingly expensive point of care.

Not only will it be more expensive, but it will be also poorer care. Hospital emergency departments, many already in a crisis because they are overloaded and understaffed, will have a very difficult time dealing with the influx of new patients demanding un-reimbursed care for non-emergent issues. Unfortunately, all emergency department patients will face longer waits for poorer care as finite hospital resources are divided among the new, larger glut of patients. For the uninsured, it will their only option, should the proposals to cut Medicaid succeed. But taxes go down, and that makes the politicians look good, which is what it is all about.

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