Socialized Medicine… Got Health Insurance But Can’t See a Doctor!

October 22nd, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

Obamacare-doctor-is-in

Obamacare fans wax utopian about how people would get the medical
attention they need if only they have health insurance. Obamacare even
tried to force people to buy health insurance, but the Supreme Court’s
Obamacare decision gave people the choice to pay a tax instead. ~ Maureen Bader

Still,
the underlying assumption that health insurance means access to care
lingers on. But is that really true? Does having health insurance mean you will get the care you need?

Medicaid sheds some light on this question…

In 2010, about 42 million children from some low-income families
obtained health insurance under two programs: Medicaid and Chip
(Children’s Health Insurance Program).

A study done by the General
Accountability Office (GAO-11-624) in 2011 showed that fewer doctors and
specialists accept children insured by Medicaid and CHIP as new patents
than children covered by private health insurance.

Just how bad is it?…

About 75 percent of primary care doctors and specialists throughout
the U.S. are enrolled as Medicaid and CHIP providers. About 77 percent
of these doctors accept all children covered by private insurers as new
patients but only about 45 percent accept all children covered under
Medicaid and CHIP.

More rural primary care doctors accept Medicaid and
CHIP insured children as new patients than urban primary care doctors.

Specialists are also less likely to accept Medicaid recipients as new
patients. About 84 percent of specialists accept all children covered
by private health insurance as new patients compared to only 51 percent
who accept all children insured by Medicaid and CHIP.

Wyoming is a rural state. Are doctor’s here more willing to take on new Medicaid patients?

According to Dr. James Bush, Medicaid Medical Office for the State of
Wyoming, virtually all primary care physicians in Wyoming are enrolled
to accept Medicaid patients.

Wyoming Medicaid does not have data on
whether doctors refuse to accept new Medicaid patients but Dr. Bush
said, “I have never heard of patients complaining that a doctor won’t
accept them because of Medicaid.”

Medicaid patients in general seem to have the same access to doctors
as everyone else in the state. The problem, Dr. Bush said, is a “paucity
of providers.”

In Wyoming in 2011, the number of people enrolled in Medicaid at some
point during the year was 90,000. Under Obamacare, that could increase
by almost 50 per cent. According to Dr. Bush, “Access will continue to
be a problem due to a lack of providers.”

Obamacare will increase the Medicaid reimbursement rate to 100
percent of Medicare reimbursement rates for 2013 and 2014, but Medicaid
reimbursement rates in Wyoming are now close to 100 percent of Medicare
rates and most doctors already take Medicaid patients, so a higher
reimbursement rate will likely have no effect on doctor supply in
Wyoming.

Because Wyoming has a small population spread over a wide
geographical area, the problem for many people needing health care, even
those with private insurance, is that there are no doctors close by to
see.

So it seems unlikely Obamacare will improve access to health care in
Wyoming. If government gets even more involved in health care, will
things get better? Probably not.

In the Canadian socialist health care paradise, government pays for
everyone’s health care, not just for those whose income falls below some
arbitrary level. In Canada, even fewer doctors take new patients
compared to doctors enrolled as Medicaid providers.

In 2004 in rural
areas, only 38 percent of doctors accepted new patients and by 2007,
only 36 percent accepted new patients. The situation is even worse in
urban areas. In 2004, only 21 percent of doctors accepted new patients
and by 2007, only 17.6 percent of doctors accepted new patients.

In
2011, the median wait time to see a specialist once a condition had been
diagnosed was 9.5 weeks. That ranges from 2.2 weeks for medical
oncology (cancer) to 19.7 weeks for orthopedic surgery.

Why won’t doctors take new patients when government pays the bills?
As the GAO study mentioned above shows, doctors don’t accept new
Medicaid and CHIP patients primarily because of low reimbursement rates
and the red tape and paperwork burden imposed by the health care
bureaucracy.

Although some people might feel more secure with government-supplied
health insurance, it doesn’t mean they will get the care they need.

Instead of sticking with the Obamacare fiction, we need reform that
increases access and lowers costs. To do this, we must stop the creeping
socialization of health care system and put people back in control of
their own health care decisions.

Maureen Bader – October 22, 2012 – posted at CanadaFreePress