The costs of Medicaid are skyrocketing at levels that should
be alarming to every Texan over the age of 18. It is estimated to be expanding over $27
billion in Texas alone, according to Thomas Suehs, executive commissioner of
the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. According to him, Medicaid accounts
for almost one third of Texas’ state spending, equaling $862 dollars per Texas
resident. If you were dining at a restaurant and the waiter brings you the tab
for the nearest ten tables around you, would you be ok with that? If you do not
want to be caught picking up the tab for their medical bills, It is time to
take action. With rising costs and
changes in population these figures will average $3500 per Texas Resident by
the year 2023 according to the John C. Goodman of the National Center for
Policy Analysis.
On a daily basis I hear families calling to ask if one of
the doctors that I work for accepts Medicaid under one of the many faces and
aliases that it has. “Do you accept Medicaid
Traditional, Medicaid Superior, Medicaid Star, Medicaid Amerigroup, Medicaid
Sendero, Chip, Chip Star, Chip Star plus?”... The list goes on and on. Or the
alternative call is one of a family asking for free healthcare stating they do
not qualify for Medicaid but they were told if they just ask to get free
healthcare, they could get it. It’s awkward to have to tell someone no, you can’t
have free services simply by asking for them. You wouldn’t go to an apartment
complex and ask to live there without paying rent, so why are we asking
physicians to provide services without charging them for it? Fortunately, most physicians do not go to twelve
years of schooling in order to provide their services free of charge. If that
were the case it would take months before you would be able to get an
appointment.
Real change needs to be made to put a stop to the almost free
care the government is requiring doctors to provide. First, providing free
healthcare should not take up one third of any state’s budget. Second, who is
going to provide healthcare for all these uninsured people? It’s a known fact
that Medicaid imbursement rates are even lower what an insurance company will
pay. All of the physicians that I work for in the Round Rock area have closed
their practice to new adult Medicaid patients. There’s only so many patients
that you can see before those kinds of deficits in revenue affect your business.
The question is how does reform and change start? How can we
impact this at the average citizen level. Voting, our only voice. We as
citizens need to become more involved and actually deny the chances of increasing
state budgets for Medicaid and other free health programs.
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ReplyDelete"Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must - must - redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent healthcare is by definition re-distributional."~Unknown
ReplyDeleteIn A.Trevino's editorial, Free Services, there are some thoughtful points brought up as well as what can be seen as injustices to the hard-working population.
First, let it be known the Medicaid program is over 50% federally funded, and it is a completely voluntary program for each state to have. Also, CHIP is not Medicaid, it is bundled together by our state to be administered by one group but very different. The $863 dollar tab is not only on the shoulders of those not on Medicaid but those on it as well. Any working citizen or resident is paying in to the same pot you do. In that respect, Medicaid makes us "united" in helping each other out.
While I understand your grievance over "picking up the tab", and also understand how often things like Medicaid and CHIP are probably abused, it does help a lot of children that would otherwise not have any healthcare. Further, a doctor has the right to say no or yes to accepting Medicaid. If they say yes and choose to accept Medicaid patients they can't also be mad that they do. It also needs to be examined how much money it will cost not to have these services.
Should we expect people to get their own insurance? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the average hourly wage in Texas is $15.44, not including part time jobs (which many people have been forced to take due to lack of extended unemployment and full time work availablity). Most jobs do not offer insurance, and to buy it on your own is too expensive. The monthly average insurance premium for a household of four is $750, not including office visit copays.
As most of us know, Texas leads the nation in the number of uninsured or underinsured children. We also have over 3 million children on Medicaid. According to the Center for Disease Control, 'Disease prevention is key to public health. It is always better to prevent a disease than to treat it.' If we were to "do away with" medicaid or "free services" how many children would suffer? According to a recent article, "Health department statistics show the number of whooping cough cases in Texas has risen by almost 60 percent in the state since 2008." This is a disease (also known as pertussis) protected by the DTaP vaccine. Vaccines need to be given in lower-income and lower socio-economic regions of the state because they are at a higher risk, and without Medicaid or CHIP these parents will not be able to vaccinate. While I am not a strong believer in all vaccines that is a debate for another day.
In order to have people stand up for a cause you believe in, such as "deleting" free services you must first weigh the pros and cons to them. I read your pros, but never saw any cons. You also need to ask yourself hard questions, such as...What if I lose my job and get cancer? What if I had a job with no insurance and got pregnant? Some of these people on Medicaid may because they were laid off after paying into the "system"you say we get rid of, and now they are using it because they are terminally ill with no way to pay for what they need to live. I believe we all pay in, and sometimes we all need a little help, unexpected or not, and to get rid of a healthcare program like Medicaid would make Texas a huge outcast among our United States. Getting rid of what I see as "not-so-free" services seems to be too big of a risk for a much more expensive situation and a lot of sick children.