Medicaid Cancer Study
Tell me again why I should be glad that 16 million new people are going to be enrolled in Medicaid?
Medicaid patients had worse survival rates than the rest of the study sample, which included both those with private insurance and with no coverage at all. The disparities persisted even after the researchers controlled for where patients live, how much education they had received and the income level of their neighborhoods.
More on this study, and full article by Sarah Kliff in The Washington Post.
Having a Medicaid card in your wallet seems to be more important than actual health care.
Critics argue Medicaid enrollees are somehow different than other patients. For instance, studies show they tend to be in worse health. This study attempted to control for known variables such as this. But there has to be a provider effect, where low reimbursements result in poor-quality care and rationing of services. This effect may merely be something as simple as doctors just not having the time to spend with Medicaid patients. Care reimbursed by Medicaid is not compensated sufficiently to allow physicians to take the time away from better-paying patients. If a doctor only has one or two complicated Medicaid patients, there may be no difference. However, when a practice has more than a few Medicaid patients, the doctor may have to run them through the clinic like cattle through a corral. Under those conditions, the doctor could miss something.
Were these results found to be true on a national scale, it might add a new element to public approval/disapproval of Obamacare. Perhaps the “right to healthcare” cannot even be satisfied by such an underachieving program.
Once Medicaid is expanded, it’s conceivable that this Administration or a future administration will use the poor health outcomes as justification to improve the program with *more funding*.
Politicians supporting Medicaid have maintained an illusion for some time. How many people does a program have to fail before the illusion vanishes?
‘Studying whether Medicaid coverage makes an individual healthier is a difficult task.’?
How is it a difficult task to determine whether Medicaid makes patients healthier or not after looking at this study? This study clearly shows that Medicaid patients are worse off with or without Medicaid coverage, so what’s the point of them even having it?
Death rates among individuals covered by Medicaid are higher than those individuals with no coverage at all, let alone those with private insurance. What does this tell you? Maybe, Medicaid is NOT caring for its patients to the needed degree and physicians are dismissing Medicaid covered individuals too soon to give priority to those covered by more expensive insurance plans that pay them more.
But hold on…there’s a good side to it! Individuals enrolled prior to their cancer diagnosis are usually better off than those enrolled after their diagnosis. Really? Is this supposed to be good news? Regardless, they are all still part of the population with higher death rates. There is nothing good about that.
Is there any product or seivrce that you know of where the cheapest is the best? Or the best is the cheapest? You have to decide what is the right balance between low premiums and comprehensive coverage. Cheap insurance will have lower premiums because of the limited benefits provided. Good insurance will not be cheap but will pay greater benefits.