Medicare’s future today: Medicaid

Published June 16, 2011 4:00am ET



The New York Times highlights a study today showing that even if you have Medicaid coverage, that does not necessarily mean you have access to health care:

The study used a “secret shopper” technique in which researchers posed as the parent of a sick or injured child and called 273 specialty practices in Cook County, Ill., to schedule appointments. The callers, working from January to May 2010, described problems that were urgent but not emergencies, like diabetes, seizures, uncontrolled asthma, a broken bone or severe depression. If they were asked, they said that primary care doctors or emergency departments had referred them.
Sixty-six percent of those who mentioned Medicaid-CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) were denied appointments, compared with 11 percent who said they had private insurance, according to an article being published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

This is a devastating study for Obamacare and its defenders. First, Over half of the health insurance coverage obtained through Obamacare is through Medicaid eligibility expansions. Second, this study shows that the left’s chosen method for health care cost containment, namely just paying doctors less through Medicare, is destined to weaken the benefits Medicare recipients receive.

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