Tag Archives: Medicaid expansion

A New Edition of Health Wonk Review—Does Barack Obama Remind You of Richard Nixon? . . . Will Most States Expand Medicaid? Do All Non-Profit Hospitals Deserve a Tax Exemption? Why Didn’t Anyone From J&J Go to Jail?

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Brad Wright has hosted the most recent edition of Health Wonk Review http://www.healthpolicyanalysis.com/2013/11/07/if-you-like-the-health-wonk-review-you-currently-have-you-can-keep-it/, a round-up of some of the best recent healthcare posts in the blogosphere. It’s an excellent read.

Wright begins with a post by John Goodman, published at the NCPOA Health Policy Blog, and titled “The Selling of Obamacare.” There, Goodman acknowledges, “As for the president himself, he is a complete enigma to me. I’ve never felt that I understood him.’  Goodman goes on to prove his point by comparing Barack Obama to Richard Nixon.

According to Goodman, when “the President suggested that most people will be completely unaffected by the new health law . . . he was lying.” After all millions who buy their own insurance in the individual market place are now getting cancellation notices. The President “looked directly into the TV camera and said something that was blatantly untrue . . . over and over and over and over again. You have to go all the way back to Richard Nixon to find something comparable.”

That’s one way of looking at things,” Wright observes, “but it’s certainly not the only way. Over at the Colorado Health Insurance Insider,/ Louise Norris counters with these words:

“Much has been said recently about how the ACA is causing a tidal wave of policy cancellations, and resulting in people losing coverage that they would prefer to keep.  The frustrating part about this – as has generally been the case with every big uproar about the ACA – is that we’re not really getting a complete picture of what’s going on, and it’s hard to see the reality through all the hype and hysteria.

I agree.

Here is the larger picture: in fact, most Americans will not be affected by Obamacare. The vast majority are insured by their employers. Medicare, Medicaid or the military. Of the 311 million people who now live in the U.S., just 15 million purchase their own insurance. They represent 5% of the population. And only some of the 5% who buy their own coverage are getting those cancellation letters,

We are talking about less than 3% of the population –far from “most people.” 

The folks I worry about most are those who should qualify for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, but live in states that have refused to expand the program. (Often they are not eligible for Medicaid simply because they don’t have children, no matter how poor they are.)

Wright offers hope by spotlighting Joe Paduda’s post on Managed Care Matters. There, he asks: “What’s happening with Medicaid Coverage?”

 
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Health Wonk Review Is Up: A Superb Summary of Provocative Healthcare Posts

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The latest edition of Health Wonk Review is now up on Wing of Zock.

 Sarah Sonies and Jenifer Salopek have done a superb job of summarizing some of the most provocative healthcare blog posts of the past two weeks. 

Here are just a few of the questions these posts  raise:

—   Should states mandate nurse staffing ratios in acute care hospitals?

— What can we learn about early Medicaid expansion in some states?

—   Why do we need more research into the value of colonoscopies?

I won’t try to summarize the posts. Just go to Wing of Zock                    

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Expanding Medicaid Is Not Enough–Making Medicaid A Federal Program

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 Note to readers—please read the post below, “Pulse—More Stories from the Heart of Medicine” (which includes “One More Child Left Behind”) before you read this post.

When I read “One More Child Left Behind,”  all I could think of was how much Aaron’s arm must have hurt during the more than 24 hours that he didn’t receive treatment. I also imagined how frightened and bewildered the six-year-old must have been as he heard his mother and grandmother talk, and realized that they couldn’t persuade a doctor to help him.

This story was published in 2009—one year before the Affordable Care Act was passed.  The ACA extends Medicaid to millions. But even under reform legislation, many children like Aaron will not receive care. This is because Medicaid now pays an average of 34% less than Medicare for exactly the same treatment.

Why on earth would we pay doctors and hospital less to care for poor patients than we would pay them to care for the elderly?

Lower Medicaid fees are part of the legacy of racism. (I write about this in Money-Driven Medicine.)  When the Medicare and Medicaid laws were passed in 1965, Southern Congressmen refused to agree to laws that would pay doctors who treated the poor as much as they reimburse physicians who care for older patients.

At the time, relatively few African-Americans living in the South were over 65.  Most died long before they would be eligible for Medicare. Yet many African-Americans were poor, and would qualify for Medicaid. This is what disturbed Southern legislators. They wanted to make sure that healthcare remained segregated.    

Even under Reform, Specialists Who Treat the Poor Will be Under-Paid   

Medicaid rates vary widely by state, but on average, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the new program will offer PCP’s a 73 percent raise This should open doors for millions of Medicaid patients. In some states that have been paying the lowest rates, the hike will be much higher. (See this map) The ACA guarantees raising Medicaid reimbursements for primary care for just two years (2013-2014). But I expect this program will be extended, although increases may be modified. Once begun, it will be very hard to justify ending it.

At the same time, specialists who care for Medicaid patients will continue to receive about 1/3 less than when treating seniors.  As a result, even under the ACA a great many Medicaid patients will be hard-pressed to find a specialist willing to see them.
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More Stories from “Pulse—voices from the heart of medicine”

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Every Friday, thousands of readers smile when they see an e-mail from Pulse: voices from the heart of medicine in their in-box. Pulse is a free, online magazine  that publishes riveting, often moving, sometimes controversial, and occasionally hilarious first-person stories and poems about medicine.  (Click on “hilarious” for a story that will astound you, and, if you share my sense of humor, make you laugh. )

All of these tales are true, and the authenticity of the writers’ voices helps explain their power.  Written by patients and doctors, nurses, caregivers, and students, these unblinkingly honest stories and poems bear witness to the suffering that patients endure, and to the compassion of caregivers — as well as their doubts.  

                                        Some of My Favorites

Long-time readers may remember poems and stories from Pulse that I have cross-posted in the past. 

 —  “Useless (But Needed), A Doctor’s Constant Companion”  — one of my favorites

 — “First Do No Harm,”  a story about how we train doctors that drew thoughtful and provocative comments from both doctors and nurses; 

— “Broken”– a controversial story about what happens when a trauma surgeon overrules an obstetrical resident. The question:  should they have tried to save the baby or the mother? Could either be saved?                                       

                A Stairwell Conversation, And a Unique Magazine is Born

Pulse founder Paul Gross, practices family medicine at Montefiore hospital in the Bronx, New York.  He recalls how Pulse was conceived:

 “What would it be like, I wondered, if there were a magazine that told about health care the way it really is? What if patients and health professionals alike got to tell their stories? 

“Around the same time, I had a stairwell conversation with a hospital director of nursing. It stopped me short. ‘For the first time in my long career,’ she said, ‘I’m ashamed to be in this business.’

“To me, this sounded like a cry for help; it sounded like a system in crisis,” Gross adds. “And yet, for the most part, popular magazines and medical journals seemed oblivious.

“It occurred to me that if we found a way to share our stories—the difficult moments along with the glorious ones—perhaps we could jump-start a national conversation about health care. Maybe this exchange could lead us toward a better health system.”
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The Newest Health Wonk Review—on Health Affairs

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Chris Fleming hosts the latest edition of Health Wonk Review, a compendium of recent posts on health care blogs.

On Managed Care Matters, Joe Paduda offers 5 predictions for health care in 2013.  He’s convinced that all but a handful of states will expand Medicaid. (“The pressure from hospitals and providers will be overwhelming.”) He also predicts that “The feds and CMS will get even more aggressive on Medicare and Medicaid fraud.”  (For what it’s worth, I think he’s right on both counts.)

                                       Food for Thought

Some posts are likely to stir controversy, either because they’re rebutting the conventional wisdom, or because they’re questioning some deeply held beliefs.  I think these posts are important because they define issues that we should all think about.

Over at Colorado Health Insurance Insider, Louise Norris examines the question of whether smokers should pay more for their health insurance.  Under the ACA, smokers can be charged up to 50 percent more than nonsmokers.  . . .

“Norris prefers the carrot over the stick,” Fleming observes, “endorsing the requirement that all plans cover tobacco cessation programs as part of the ACA’s preventive services mandate, although she cites evidence showing that implementation of this requirement has been inconsistent. “ (It’s worth noting that tobacco cessation programs work. “Sticks,” behavioral psychologists tell us, just aren’t nearly as effective.) 

The Hospitalist Leader’s  Brad  Flansbaum suggests that our emphasis on getting everyone vaccinated during a severe influenza (and claims about Tamiflu) may well amount to “oversell.”  Eye-opening.

 At the Innovative Health Media Blog  David Wilson writes: “The Medicare Annual Wellness Visit  (AWV) is the perfect vehicle to address the increasing need for early detection of cognitive impairment.  The AWV” gives physicians the opportunity “to provide such a screening and receive reimbursement for it .

“Once a patient shows the need for additional testing physicians can use self-administered computerized tests to perform the additional screening without referring the patients to another doctor or office,” he adds. ” This also creates additional reimbursement for physicians.” 

MM–I can’t help but ask: “Since we have no cure or effective treatments for Alzheimer’s (or most forms of senile dementia) do you really want to know that, in three or four years, you may  be diagnosed with full-blown Alzheimer’s?”

Certainly, seniors who want this testing should have access to it. Perhaps, one day, accumulated data will help researchers understand the disease. But Medicare patients should know that they can say “No” There is no requirement that this be part of your Annual Wellness visit.

On the Health Business Blog, another David Wilson has published a post that is likely to be even more controversial. He argues that “The Nursing Shortage is a Myth.”

We have plenty of nurses,  Wilson suggests. In fact, in the future, he writes, “robots will be replacing nurses “just as robots have replaced “paralegals” and “actuaries.” (“Insurance companies used to hire tons of them, but their work can be done much more efficiently with computers.”)

Over at Wright on Health, Brad Wright takes a look at the recent Institute of Medicine report comparing health in the U.S. to health in other wealthy nations. He notes that data on preventable deaths among young people points to the importance of public health interventions, including reducing access to guns.

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