Thursday, June 16, 2011

New study: children on Medicaid receive less access to care

A recent study by the New England Journal of Medicine found that children on Medicaid receive less access to health care.

66 percent of children with Medicaid or SCHIP were denied an appointment, while only 11 percent of children covered by private insurance were denied.

The most troubling news of all is that Obamacare dramatically expands Medicaid to significantly more Americans.

In a commentary today, Avik Roy of Forbes calls this into question: "If patients on Medicaid fare worse than those who aren’t, then spending $100 billion a year to expand the program is a disastrous choice."

We should be looking for ways to improve health care access and outcomes; unfortunately, expanding the government option in its current state won't do either of these.

2 comments:

peyton.joel83 said...

How do you propose improving heathcare access and outcomes?

Holly said...

Great question. The problem is that the Affordable Care Act did nothing to address the incentive problems inherent in the Medicaid program but only expanded. We need to look at the problems inherent in the Medicaid program to determine how we can fix it.

We'll have more on this issue in the coming weeks. The Bluegrass Institute will be releasing an in-depth study of Kentucky Medicaid spending and lays out solutions for reform.