This was one of the debates that was never allowed to happen since Democrats rushed the health care bill through without reading, or understanding their own bill. ObamaCare forces more onto the Medicaid rolls as less doctors are accepting Medicaid due to low government payments.
Let the clusterfuck begin.
LAFAYETTE, La. — Eight-year-old Draven Smith was expelled from school last year for disruptive behavior, and he is being expelled again this year. But his mother and his pediatrician cannot find a mental health specialist to treat him because he is on Medicaid, and the program, which provides health coverage for the poor, pays doctors so little that many refuse to take its patients.
Another side effect of ObamaCare. Due to low payouts, most doctors and specialist will stop accepting Medicaid. Long lines and waiting for doctors here we come.
The problem is common here and across the country, especially as states, scrambling to balance their budgets, look for cuts in Medicaid, which is one of their biggest expenditures. And it presents the Obama administration with a major challenge, since the new federal health care law relies heavily on Medicaid to cover many people who now lack health insurance.
“Having a Medicaid card in no way assures access to care,” said Dr. James B. Aiken, an emergency physician in New Orleans.
Nicole R. Dardeau, 46, a nurse in Opelousas, La., in the heart of Cajun country, can attest to that. She said she could not work because of unbearable pain in her right arm. Doctors have found three herniated discs in her neck and recommended surgery, but cannot find a surgeon to take her as a Medicaid patient.
Get use to it, thanks to ObamaCare.
From her pocketbook, she pulls an insurance card issued by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.
“My Medicaid card is useless for me right now,” Ms. Dardeau said over lunch. “It’s a useless piece of plastic. I can’t find an orthopedic surgeon or a pain management doctor who will accept Medicaid.”
Medicaid, which is paid for jointly by the federal and state governments, is the subject of an intense debate in Washington over how to make it more efficient as Congress addresses the budget deficit and the growing federal debt.
But for now the administration is counting on Medicaid to play a vital role in expanding access to care under the law President Obama signed last year. The program is already a major presence here, paying for 70 percent of births in Louisiana. State health officials estimate that the Medicaid program will grow by more than 40 percent as a result of the federal health law, with the addition of 467,000 new recipients to 1.1 million now on the rolls.
It is a question being asked in many states. With the expansion of Medicaid to cover nearly all people under 65 with incomes up to 133 percent of the official poverty level (up to $29,330 a year for a family of four), Medicaid will soon be the nation’s largest insurer. It accounts for almost half of the increase in coverage expected under Mr. Obama’s health law, but has received less attention than other parts of the law regulating private insurance.
Yes, those of us who pay taxes will be paying higher premiums for our insurance and higher taxes to cover those added to the Medicaid rolls thanks to ObamaCare.
…The Congressional Budget Office predicts that average monthly Medicaid enrollment, now 56 million, will rise to 71 million by 2016, with another five million people added to the rolls in the five years after that.
That’s an extra 20 million individuals added to an entitlement program that is bankrupting states. Be sure to thank Obama and the Democrats in 2012.
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