Medicaid Provides Poor Quality Care: What the Research Shows
By: Brian Blasé
There has been several research studies that show that Americans enrolled in Medicaid have less access to health care, and when they do receive the care the quality is inferior to the care provided to other patients. Medicaid is failing current patients who are enrolled and taxpayers must be notified of the changes taking place. According to Brian the Medicaid expansion within Obamacare will further weaken the program and hurting those who truly need it and will burden taxpayers.
Medicaid is a costly and unsustainable welfare program that delivers low quality health care , providing low provider payment rates which in turn makes for a hard time finding a doctor. By doing this it forces many patients to rely on expensive and overcrowded hospital emergency rooms for what is deemed as non-emergency care. Medicaid patients are assigned to less skilled surgeons and receive poorer post- operative instructions and at most times suffer worse outcomes for identical procedures than similar patients both with and without health insurance.
In 2020 the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act also known as Obamacare will enroll up to 25 million additional people into Medicaid including those who had private health insurance. It has been suggested that congress should have another course that allows states greater leeway to determine how to provide safety net health care within a framework that encourages those states to be wise stewards of taxpayer dollars. Medicaid patients stay in the hospital an average of 10 days compared to 7 days for patients who are privately insured. Another frightening discovery was when a closer look was taken regarding children with asthma. Researchers found that a child having private coverage was 5 times more likely to see an asthma specialist than if they were on medicaid. Children with Medicaid are 50 percent more likely to be seen by a doctor in the emergency room in the past year alone.
According to a 2004-2005 survey only half of american physicians accept all new Medicaid patients
Many don't believe Medicaid should not expand but should be reformed because it is currently failing taxpayers and has become too large to serve those individuals wo truly need public assistance.
You make some clear points here that Blase claims stem from research studies. Are there others who agree with Blase? Have you read those who disagree? Blase is working for the Heritage Foundation which is a conservative think tank. What are liberals saying about this issue? What does the US Department of Health and Human Services say about the financial sustainability of Medicaid? What I would love to see in your blog is that you have read both sides of the issue and analyzed the data to determine what the preponderance of the evidence tells you. It's important in research to be aware of author biases and to consider them as you read.
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