Will You Really Be Able to Keep Your Own Doctor?
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009 By Marc KilmerPresident Obama has said that under his health care reform, “if you like your doctor, you keep your doctor.” While President Obama wants to create a new government-run “insurance” program, there are already government-run health care programs for the poor and elderly. Perhaps the President is unaware of it, but in one of these programs, Medicaid, some patients are having to sue the government in order to keep their own doctors:
Some desperate patients went to court in Hamilton County Monday, begging a judge for help.
They say the state won’t let them see their longtime doctors anymore.
The patients are so sick, they’re in the state’s Medicaid program for the aged, blind and disabled.
They’ve sued to keep their Health Alliance doctors and hospitals after the state’s Medicaid provider, Buckeye Insurance, dropped the Health Alliance in April.
If the government is already forcing people in government health care to choose new doctors, can we really believe that this will change under a new government health care program?
Tags: Health care, Medicaid, President Obama
July 21st, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Or–so much for privitization? Buckeye Insurance is a private HMO. It has a contract with the State of Ohio to provide health insurance to people who used to be on Medicaid as a fee for service, state run, single payor plan. It has made a business decision to drop Health Alliance. It’s the “magic” of the marketplace.
July 21st, 2009 at 6:21 pm
While it is difficult to imagine how federalizing healthcare or health insurance would fix the system’s current pitfalls, and while it’s easy to foresee many more pitfalls it would create, I have to disagree that Medicaid or the feds are to blame for Hamilton County setback. Privatization is bound to yield better service and results for better prices in the long run, but in a fluctuating market, businesses such as Buckeye Insurance will occasionally have to make cuts; that’s the nature of the beast. It’s just a much better beast than federalization. And that’s what we must remind ourselves when the private sector decides to course-correct. But while we shouldn’t be too quick to blame the feds here, nor should we scapegoat privatization. To say “so much for privatization” is to call the game in the 5th inning. All enterprises, public or private, will see setbacks. But the private sector’s setbacks tend to generate more wealth in the end.
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:57 pm
I’m not so sure we can chalk this up to a failure of privatization — the Medicaid “market” in Ohio is pretty far from resembling a true market. Dr. Mike Bond has written a lot about how to improve it so situations like this don’t happen. You may be interested in checking out his work: http://www.buckeyeinstitute.org/bio.php?id=20.
I do think that this type of situation will happen as long as you have a third party paying for your health care, whether it’s a government program or private program. Unfortunately, pretty much every proposal coming from both Democrats and Republicans involves more third-party payment for health care. Only when consumers control their health care dollars will they be able to control their health care decisions.
July 25th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Maybe this is not really about Obamacare or privatization. Maybe it’s this: these folks are poor, and they cannot afford insurance or to pay for medical care. So being a compassionate and caring people, we provide it for them, at no cost to themseleves and at great cost to us. Despite my screen name, I am having trouble conjuring up too much sympathy for the fact that the recipients of all of this expensive for me yet free for them care might have to find a new doctor. I appreciate that this can be stressful, but still…
As to health care reform–let’s just remember that it can be the government or the private insurance companies who from time to time may not be able to reach financial agreements with providers. This time it is a private insurance company under contract with the government. Other times, there are other variations. With or without Obamacare, I suspect this type of issue will always be with us.