Center for Studying Health System
Change Mounting Pressures: Physicians Serving Medicaid Patients and the Uninsured, 1997-2001
Tracking Report No. 6
December 2002
By Peter J. Cunningham
Clouds on the Horizon
Continued financial pressures on physicians may decrease their willingness to serve Medicaid patients even further, potentially endangering access to care. States are experiencing serious budget pressures, and most are considering reducing or freezing Medicaid physician reimbursement to cut program costs. Rising health care costs as well as reductions in other provider payments may constrain physicians’ ability further to cross-subsidize free care to uninsured patients. And access to physicians is just one concern, as more general cost-containment measures being considered or implemented by states also could affect access to hospitals and prescription drugs among both Medicaid and uninsured patients.
http://www.hschange.com/CONTENT/505/
Comment: Our current system of funding health care is not capable of assuring access to health care for low-income and uninsured individuals. This problem would be eliminated by improving the allocation of the $1.55 trillion that we are already spending on health care. The administrative efficiencies of a single, universal, publicly-administered insurance program would provide enough recovery of wasted resources to fund comprehensive services for everyone.