government
Medicaid faulted for failing adults and children
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Nov. 26, 2012
Medicaid patients continue to experience inferior care to those on private insurance, a situation that will worsen under the national health system reform law’s coverage expansion provisions, according to a report from the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington.
Academic articles consistently have shown that Medicaid adults and children have poorer health outcomes and access to care than those on private insurance, according to the report’s author, Kevin Dayaratna, a graduate fellow at Heritage. Citing several studies, Dayaratna highlighted the challenges patients faced in obtaining timely cancer treatments and noted that survival rates were significantly higher for the privately insured than for Medicaid beneficiaries.
He also referred to a recent study in Health Affairs that found a growing reluctance among doctors to accept new Medicaid patients, a likely consequence of the program’s historically low payment rates.
“Policymakers should reform Medicaid to allow Medicaid patients access to private insurance in a consumer-driven market,” Dayaratna wrote.
Medicaid has scored higher marks in other studies, however. A recent report from the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured found that most state Medicaid programs were covering the bulk of recommended preventive services for nonelderly adults in areas such as pregnancy care and on cancer and sexually transmitted infection screenings.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2012/11/26/gvbf1126.htm.
