Children on Medicaid Shown to Wait Longer for Care

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

Children with Medicaid are far more likely than those with private insurance to be turned away by medical specialists or be made to wait more than a month for an appointment, even for serious medical problems, a new study finds.

Lower payments by Medicaid, delays in paying and red tape are largely to blame, researchers say.

The study, with findings that match anecdotal reports from other parts of the country, is one of only a few efforts to measure access to health care among people with Medicaid. Nationwide, those patients are caught between states’ threats to cut Medicaid payments and the Obama administration’s plans to use the program to cover more and more people as part of its health care law.

“There’s never been a study this comprehensive or this rigorous that actually measured access to specialty care, let alone children’s access,” said Dr. Karin V. Rhodes, an author of the study and director of emergency care policy research in the department of emergency medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/health/policy/16care.html

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[wilt the stilt]

6. I guess you have insurance

How many in the U.S. die because that never see the Doctor because they have no insurance. People like you don't see that we have rationing. All who don't have insurance are rationed out.

[hootinholler]

8. Well what a dashing reply!

Why one might think from that statement that the Brits would be giddy to get American style healthcare.

Why one would also think that the cancellation is what killed her. From your article, that is not certain.

So please do come back when you have more than right wingnut talking points to share.

-Hoot

[woo me with science]

2. Well, two Americas are being created.

Of course we will have separate infant mortality and life expectancy charts.

:puke:

[ejpoeta]

3. as someone with kids on medicaid and has had it mysself, i can attest to the difficulty.

forget specialists. there was one dentist in batavia i could take my daughter to. with my husband's eye and dental plans (which we use instead of our state insurance for eye and dental) we can go almost anywhere, but when i wasn't sure if we still had the eye and dental, the dentist we normally go to said that they don't take the child health plus or medicaid. i envisioned my kids back at the one place that took it (if they are still there). It was fine for my oldest because she is independent that way.

But Ashley is different. The dentist we go to for cleanings wouldn't do her fillings and sent me to a pediatric dentist in batavia which didn't take our insurance. So I had to pay upfront and get reimbursed from my insurance company. To be fair, I believe they are like that with most insurance companies. So I had to pay $300 out of pocket for one visit. That special gas is $100! The second visit something went wrong and she cried all the way home and it took me at least a year to let anyone even look in her mouth again. And she still needs another one filled!

Now, Abby has medicaid. She is almost 2. We have taken her to a pediatric opthamologist. As far as I know, he is the only one at Children's hospital. I am trying to think how long we waited to get an appointment for her. I'd say a couple of months. We have a follow up next week actually.

This is what burns me about this heathcare argument. People have choices. With employer insurance, your choices consist of what they allow you to choose from. And then your insurance provider gives you a book of doctors from which to choose from. No matter if they are the best. There are no rankings in their list. And with medicaid or other state insurance you get the same thing, only less choices even. This fallacy about choices.

[groundloop]

4. See... this proves that socialized medicine is bad (rationing)

:sarcasm:


I'd say it was a case of rationing when my wife had to wait for over two years for a procedure because it took that long to work our way through insurance company BS. Damn we're so stupid sometimes, we spend $trillions on unnecessary wars yet keep trying to balance the national budget by making cuts to programs which help our poor and elderly.

News like this is exactly what right wingers want to see. They'll twist this story from "Medicaid is underfunded and can't pay hospitals and physicians enough" to "Medicaid doesn't work and should be eliminated".

[OHdem10]

5. Fodder for RW ers against 'government run health care.

[Stratosgc]

7. Sure beats having no insurance at all.

If your child has a cronic condition Medicare will save their life. You can't treat a cronic condition by trips to the emergency room. It may be inconvenient, but it does work. You may need to shop for a good doctor that takes Medicare, but I have good health insurance and I have to shop for a good doctor.

[sinkingfeeling]

9. My grandchild is on Arkids, Arkansas Medicaid, and we haven't seen any delays.

[Honeycombe8]

10. Any time any of us get anything for free, we can expect the service to be less than if we werepaying

Isn't that the way things are?

If you go to a food fair, and there's a booth with burgers for $5.00, and a booth with burgers for free, you can expect the line at the free burgers booth to be much longer.