Medicaid

Insurance does not equal health care

One part of the Affordable Care Act extended Medicaid benefits to millions of Americans.  One problem, however, is that patients with Medicaid insurance often have trouble finding doctors who will treat them.  The New York Times reports:

Large numbers of doctors who are listed as serving Medicaid patients are not available to treat them, federal investigators said in a new report.

“Half of providers could not offer appointments to enrollees,” the investigators said in the report, which will be issued on Tuesday.

Many of the doctors were not accepting new Medicaid patients or could not be found at their last known addresses, according to the report from the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services. The study raises questions about access to care for people gaining Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act…

“For example,” the report said, “a number of obstetricians had wait times of more than one month, and one had wait times of more than two months for an enrollee who was eight weeks pregnant. Such lengthy wait times could result in a pregnant enrollee receiving no prenatal care in the first trimester of pregnancy.”

Just having insurance is not enough. The insurance must be sufficient that physicians are actually willing to treat the patient.

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