The New York Times published a story about the new health care law’s burden on already burdened states. Under the bill, millions more Americans will be covered under Medicaid. An excerpt:
“Able-bodied adults under 65 — now mostly ineligible unless they have dependent children — will qualify for coverage in 2014 as long as they earn no more than $14,404 (in current dollars) for a single adult and $29,326 for a family of four, or 133 percent of the federal poverty level.
“Of the 32 million uninsured Americans expected to gain health coverage under the new law, as many as 20 million will be insured by Medicaid, experts estimate. Asset tests will be largely eliminated, so workers who lose their jobs can get health coverage even if they own their homes or have money saved for retirement. (Illegal immigrants will not be eligible.)
“Absorbing that many people into the system will not be easy.”
That final sentence may be the understatement of the decade. It’s a problem not only for the system; primary care doctors, dealing with a shortage, will have more patients to treat. Some doctors have stopped accepting Medicaid patients. The new law will require current computer systems to be upgraded, and treatment centers will have to be expanded to accommodate more patients. To make matters worse, the law bans new physician-owned hospitals.
“We’re pretty darn busy, I can tell you that,” Ann Kohler, director of health services at the American Public Human Services Association, told the New York Times. “Many of my members opposed the bill and still do, frankly. They don’t like it. But it is the law, and we’re working hard to get it implemented.”
Although Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement rates for primary care doctors will rise under the new law, the increase is only temporary. The government would have to propose a significant, permanent increase to encourage doctors to accept new Medicaid patients in appreciable numbers and to give more medical students an incentive to become primary care doctors.
