New Mexico’s decision to expand Medicaid has been a lifesaver for Kevin Gibson but a conundrum for his nurse practitioner.
The 46-year-old Mr. Gibson this year got coverage under the plan, went for a checkup and learned he had prostate cancer. Before 2014, Medicaid rules wouldn’t have considered him needy enough for eligibility. But the expansion, tied to the federal health overhaul, made him eligible, and last month Medicaid paid for robotic surgery to treat his cancer.
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| Nurse practitioner Jodi Padgett gives a checkup to Kevin Gibson at her practice in Farmington, N.M. John Francis Peters for WSJ |
For his nurse practitioner, Jodi Padgett, the surge of Medicaid enrollees like him creates new opportunities, because some overworked local doctors are turning away new beneficiaries who then visit her practice. But Medicaid, the health plan for the poor funded by state and federal dollars, pays far less than private insurance. Mr. Gibson’s visits paid about $80, compared with about $160 for a patient with private insurance. Her profits are narrowing as she takes on more such patients, and she may eventually need to turn away additional beneficiaries.
The two New Mexicans in San Juan County show how Medicaid’s explosive growth—hastened by the Affordable Care Act—has created a paradox.
Many Americans with low incomes now have health coverage they couldn’t have gotten before this year under the act, widely called Obamacare. But their sheer numbers are straining some health-care systems that already don’t have enough doctors and staff. And the new Medicaid enrollees can challenge medical practices’ bottom lines in ways that lead them to turn some away.
Almost nine million additional Americans now have coverage through Medicaid as a result of changes that took effect this year under the 2010 act. Still more are expected to join after the second sign-up drive for coverage starts on Saturday across the country. Another four million are projected to join Medicaid’s rolls in the coming year.
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ReplyDelete______________________________________
Rx for ObamaCare:
Republicans must perform RADICAL SURGERY
Betsy McCaughey
http://BetsyMcCaughey.com/rx-for-obamacare-republicans-must-perform-radical-surgery
______________________________________
Americans aren’t stuck with ObamaCare,
at least not for longer than we’re stuck with Obama.
When he’s gone, REPEAL and REPLACE IT.
In the meantime, a Republican Senate
owes voters a good faith effort
to get rid of its worst parts.
______________________________________
These new Republican senators better live up
to their pledges and put bills on the president’s desk
to repeal the worst parts of ObamaCare.
Don’t throw us mere crumbs,
such as repeal of the medical-device tax.
The Obama administration pulled every trick
to prevent this rout.
It ILLEGALLY DELAYED the employer mandate
for two straight years
because employers were cutting their workers’ hours
TO EVADE OBAMACARE.
This year, it delayed open enrollment
on the ObamaCare exchanges
from Oct. 15 until after Election Day –
a shrewd move,
since healthcare.gov “glitches” are expected
to inflict more chaos on us the second time around.
Sure, Republicans don’t have the 60 votes needed,
under Senate rules, to fend off a filibuster.
But they can certainly see if a few Democrats
are willing to do more than talk about “fixing” ObamaCare.
And the GOP only needs 51 senators to pass bills
pertaining to spending and taxes
under the “reconciliation” procedure.
Democrats used reconciliation
to weasel ObamaCare through in 2010.
McConnell ought to fight fire with fire,
using reconciliation to repeal the following parts
of the law, and dare the president to use his veto:
…………………………………………………………………………….
• Repeal the job-killing employer mandate (Sec. 1513).
Because of this, employers are
holding their full-time workforce below 50
and pushing other workers below 30 hours a week.
• Repeal the freedom-killing individual mandate (Sec. 1501).
• Eliminate navigators (Sec. 1311).
This is a permanent job bank for community activists,
unions and other friends of the Democratic Party,
… instead of relying on government employees.
This scheme uses your premiums to fund
the shadow army of the Democratic Party
in between elections.
• Repeal the bailout for insurers (Sec. 1342).
The law encourages insurers to price plans below cost,
since taxpayer money makes them whole
for most losses at the end of the year.
John Q. Public is paying to fool himself
and make ObamaCare look affordable.
• Repeal the controls on your doctor: Sec. 1311h1(B)
empowers the secretary of Health and Human Services
to dictate how doctors treat privately insured patients.
That can force your doctor to choose
between doing what’s best for you
and avoiding a government penalty.
• Repeal IPAB (Sec. 3403),
the panel of 15 unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats
empowered to slash Medicare payments.
…………………………………………………………………………….
So far ObamaCare has put 6 million
previously uninsured people on Medicaid
and enrolled 2.5 million in ObamaCare private plans.
That’s small potatoes in a country of 318 million,
and a trivial payoff for tens if not hundreds of millions
in new federal subsidies.
_______________________________________________
ObamaCare Security: Still on Life Support
HealthCare.gov
has been described by experts as a ‘hacker’s dream.’
……………………………………………………………………………..
The rollout last fall of HealthCare.gov,
was a disaster that still scars people’s perceptions
of the law and no doubt contributed to
the drubbing Democrats took in the midterm elections.
The bar for success was thus very low
for the Nov. 15 start of the open enrollment period
for ObamaCare’s second year.
…………………………………………………………………………..
http://online.wsj.com/articles/diane-black-obamacare-security-still-on-life-support-1416005539?mod=Opinion_newsreel_3
…………………………………………………………………………..
www.ZeroHEDGE.com
www.YouTUBE.com/BoomBustRT
www.RealClearPOLITICS.com
www.RealClearMARKETS.com
……………………………………………………………………..
ReplyDelete______________________________________
Rx for ObamaCare:
Republicans must perform RADICAL SURGERY
Betsy McCaughey
http://BetsyMcCaughey.com
http://BetsyMcCaughey.com/rx-for-obamacare-republicans-must-perform-radical-surgery
______________________________________
A Catastrophe Like No Other
______________________________________
“If you like your health-care plan,
you can keep your health-care plan, period.”
“If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, period.”
…………………………………………………….
You cannot look at ObamaCare and
call it anything but a HUGE, HISTORIC MESS.
NANCY PELOSI literally said —
blithely, mindlessly, but in a way forthcomingly —
that we have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.
Nancy Pelosi’s statement was a historic admission
that she was fighting hard for something
she herself didn’t understand,
but she had every confidence regulators
and bureaucratic interpreters
would tell her in time what she’d done.
This is how [ Democrates ] make laws now.
…………………………………………………….
IF you LIKED
your doctor, your plan,
your network, your coverage,
your deductible
you could NOT keep it.
…………………………………………………….
ObamaCare has terrorized millions
who did have insurance and lost it,
or who still have insurance and may lose it.
A program whose complexity is
so utter and defeating that
it defies any normal human attempt
at comprehension.
…………………………………………………….
There’s a brute test of a policy:
IF you knew then
what you know now,
would you do it ?
There are very, very few Democrats
who would do ObamaCare over again.
Some would do something different,
but they wouldn’t do this.
The COST of the BLUNDER has been TOO HIGH
in terms of policy and politics.
______________________________________
By Peggy Noonan — April 4, 2014
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304441304579479700454846082
______________________________________
www.ZeroHEDGE.com
www.YouTUBE.com/BoomBustRT
www.RealClearPOLITICS.com
…………………………………………………….