by Dan SullivanThe attacks on Medicaid expansion have begun and will intensify as the General Assembly session gets underway. We should wait, they argue, until Medicaid is reformed. By that argument, we should close down healthcare totally. It is service delivery that is broken and demands reform, not the bill payers.
Somehow Medicaid recipients are to blame for doctors who bill
for procedures never performed, pharmaceutical companies that raise
prescription prices because they know insurance will cover “negotiated” costs,
insurance companies that create twisted access structures that are a barrier to
treatment and that maximize profits, companies that price medical record software to
gouge tax credits, and accountants and clerks who embezzle revenues. Yes, your
tired, your poor, your huddled Virginians yearning, no desperate, for care are
relegated to emergency rooms one way or another where a single visit might be
billed at a rate greater than the annual cost of a full year of Medicaid
preventative care. And all of this the recipients’ fault, so cut them off.
Oh, and we are to suppose none of this ever happens in the
private sector to for-profit health insurance companies. Get a grip, Republicans,
you used to be the party of business but you’ve become the party of busybodies.
Sunday we were treated to a litany of situated arguments about why
Medicaid should not be expanded in a
piece designed to play well with the “f&#@ you, I’ve got mine” crowd.
Seven reasons without real reason. Keep in mind, there is not a footnote or
reference in the column.
